


Crashing, Drifting, Sinking Way Too Deep

by SpringlockedSpectre



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Car Accident, Connor is not the best brother unfortunately, Gavin Reed Not Being an Asshole, Hank is a huge asshole with no redemption, He only appears in one chapter and all he does is yell at Nines, He shows up in like three chapters and gets beat up in two of them, Hospitalization, Human AU, M/M, Partners to Lovers, Recovery, Slow Burn, it's great, reed900RBB, reed900reversebigbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpringlockedSpectre/pseuds/SpringlockedSpectre
Summary: Gavin Reed just really wants to be promoted to sergeant. Fowler offers him a deal: train the rookie, show he can work with people, and he’ll be considered for taking the sergeant exam. And so, he reluctantly shows this new guy the ropes. But then, feelings get involved, and just when Gavin thinks something good might come out of his partnership, an accident turns everything upside-down.Just as if he didn’t think his life could get any more complicated.
Relationships: Tina Chen & Chris Miller & Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 46
Kudos: 93
Collections: Reed900 Reverse Big Bang





	1. Kinda Like Partners

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey!! Welcome to my entry for the [Reed900 Reverse Big Bang](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reed900ReverseBigBang), featuring amazing art by Ao3 user [celexdraw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celexdraw/pseuds/celexdraw) who also has [a Tumblr page](https://celexdraw.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Huge shoutout to celexdraw, who's both my artist and beta-reader, I swear to god this fic would've made less sense if it weren't for them fsdfkmaflafafmkal
> 
> Anyway, I took a bit too long to complete this work so posting schedule's gonna be a bit weird, so please bear with me, haha. Either way, the updates will come as follows:
> 
> Chapter 02 - December 8, 2020  
> Chapter 03 - December 11, 2020  
> Chapter 04 - December 15, 2020  
> Chapter 05 - December 17, 2020  
> Chapter 06 - December 22, 2020  
> Chapter 07 - December 25, 2020  
> Chapter 08 - December 29, 2020  
> Chapter 09 - January 1, 2021  
> Chapter 10 - January 5, 2021  
> Chapter 11 - January 8, 2021  
> Chapter 12 - January 12, 2021

It was a normal day in the life of Gavin Reed.

Wake up, shower, get dressed. Think about getting breakfast, decide not to eat breakfast, and head on over to the precinct. He got there a few minutes later than he would’ve liked, because he decided that he was too hungry to not eat, and as soon as he got inside the precinct, he was immediately greeted with people talking about him as if he couldn’t hear them, and a hot coffee that was probably filled with salt instead of sugar, which he’d drink mostly out of spite. Oh, and Fowler yelled at him to get to his office.

So yeah, pretty normal day so far.

Gavin groaned as he got up from his desk, pointedly ignoring all the _(not so)_ whispers of what the fuck he did now. Honestly, Gavin wished he knew too. Walking into Fowler’s office, he saw that Fowler didn’t look pissed at him, so that was a first. He sat on the chair in front of Fowler’s desk, getting somewhat comfy before speaking.

“You wanted to see me, Cap?” Gavin raised an eyebrow as he sat with his legs crossed.

“Yes, Reed.” Fowler shifted through some files, not once looking at Gavin. “I know you’ve been gunning for that Sergeant position, but I’ll be honest, your personal skills suck.”

Well, Gavin couldn’t exactly refute that, with his two friends who probably only tolerated him. He grumbled under his breath, looking up as Fowler placed a file of some person in front of him. He took the file, sifted through it, found out that it was a file of some new recruit to the DPD. Richard Stern, or as Gavin would most likely call him, Dick Hard. Gavin let out a snort as he looked through the guy’s file more.

Fowler cleared his throat and looked at Gavin pointedly. Gavin would’ve sat a bit straighter if he actually gave a fuck. “So here’s what I’m gonna do. You’re gonna train this new cop. Young, fresh-faced, determined to climb the ranks. He’s basically you when you first came here. Show him the ropes, make sure he doesn’t end up in a body bag like the others, show me that you can actually _work_ with someone without blowing up at them, and we’ll see if that gets you to Sergeant.”

Based on what Gavin read on this guy, Fowler was right. No disciplinary records, basically the top of his class, and a smug looking fucker that thought he could last with his morals intact. Gavin looked up at Fowler with furrowed brows as he closed the file. “Not that I don’t appreciate this intervention or whatever, but couldn’t you have picked someone else for this job? Someone more qualified?”

The older man sighed and leaned back in his seat, rubbing his temple. “I could. I honestly could. But everyone who’d qualify for this is too busy with their cases, and if not you, I’d have to get several officers to help one guy. You’re one of the best in my precinct, Reed. Despite all your shit that pushes other people away, you know how to work a crime scene and interrogate the shit out of people. We need someone like you if we wanna make better cops.”

The detective mulled over his decision, looking over Stern’s file once more. Fowler looked at him with his hands threaded together. “He’ll be here first thing tomorrow. So what’s it gonna be, Reed?”

“Alright.” Gavin sighed as he tucked Stern’s file under his arm and stood up. “I’m on it, Cap.”

“I knew I could count on you, Reed.” Fowler then gave him a gentle smile, one that Gavin hadn’t ever seen on the older man’s face before. Fowler must’ve then realized that he was showing emotions other than anger or annoyance, because he then waved Gavin off. “Now get back to work”

Gavin trudged back to the breakroom, desperately needing a caffeine boost before he had to deal with this shit. Tina sauntered by and took her place next to him, taking a sip of her boba tea or whatever the fuck she drank nowadays. “So, what’d you get called in for this time, Reed?”

“Fowler wanted me to go train a rookie named Richard Stern. He’s got top marks in the academy, no disciplinary records. Perfect cop on paper, though bein’ on duty’s another thing entirely.” Gavin said as he absentmindedly made his coffee. Tina just nodded.

“What’s he like? I can never tell with your active bitch face.”

“Well, Fowler said that he’s a lot like I was when I first joined the force, and from what I can see on his file, that looks to be the case.” Gavin showed her his file as they walked towards a table. “So, either we’re gonna really hit it off, or hit each other until one of us cries to Fowler.”

Tina snorted at that. “Knowing you, it’s gonna be the latter.”

Gavin just shrugged and after a bit more mindless chatter with Tina, went through his day. So far, the day was absolutely normal. He got called in for some crime scene, stuck his _(gloved, because he’s not a heathen)_ hands into some dead bodies, left the rest up to narcotics, ballistics, and who the fuck ever as he wrote some report on what he knows while checking for possible suspects. When he finally got enough of his work done, he clocked out, and went home.

* * *

As soon as Gavin got out of his car, he was immediately greeted by the sight of one Richard Stern, who was standing right in front of the building. Gavin noted the fact that Stern was actually way taller than him, which didn’t really surprise him too much. Everyone seemed to be taller than him these days, even though he swore on his average height that there should’ve been more people who were either shorter than him or around his height. The rookie looked down at him, his ice blue eyes piercing through him as he unlocked the entrance to the DPD. Gavin then looked over at him and said probably the most stupid thing he has ever said in his life.

“Are you Dick Hard?” Gavin only realized what he said after a few moments, but he maintained his poker face. 

Stern just snorted and shook his head. “Richard Stern, but sure.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow. From this one reaction, it looked like Stern was one of the very few people who could deal with his shit. He could get with that. “Alright, well. I’m Detective Gavin Reed, I’m gonna be your handler or whatever the fuck.”

“So eloquent.” Stern commented. Gavin flipped him off, which only got a laugh out of the officer-in-training.

“Alright, smartass.” Gavin rolled his eyes as he slumped down onto his desk, putting his feet up on the table. Stern seemed content to just sit on the edge of his desk, so Gavin didn’t bother offering him another seat. “Just tell me what they taught you in the academy and what you need refreshers on.”

“The academy trained us on criminal law, their proceedings, crime scene handling, police tactics, plus a physical fitness conditioning.” Stern listed out before a smirk found its way on his face. “And well, I assume that it’d be narcissistic for me to say that I don’t need any refreshers on anything, so let’s just do them all and see how great I am.”

Gavin had to give it to him, he was as bold as he used to be. It would be… _interesting_ to see how hard the reality of police work would hit him. He shook his head, stood up from his seat and walked towards the training room. He looked Stern directly in his ice cold eyes, standing up straighter. This was certainly a challenge if he ever saw one, and Gavin Reed did not back down from a challenge. “Alright then. Let’s get a move on.”

And then- _flash!_

“Nice.” Tina said after she used her stupid fucking Polaroid camera that she got from the 80s. “You guys look so cute in this one, baby’s first rival.”

They both flipped her off, which got her to laugh loudly and snap another photo of them. She pocketed the two pictures, wearing a shit-eating grin as she walked past them and further down into the precinct. “Keep this up, and I’ll have enough to start a photo album with just the two of you.”

“Fuck off, Chen.” Gavin huffed as he grabbed Stern by the arm and walked off to the evidence room. Stern kept pausing at different areas they passed by only to be yanked by Gavin, with the promise of _‘exploration or whatever the fuck you want’_ after they’re done.

After they got into the evidence room, Gavin began rambling about how the evidence was stored, sorted, all that stuff. Stern occasionally piped up with a few questions, a few declarations, which all in all, just alerted Gavin to how serious he was about this job.

After a few more minutes of doing that, Gavin let Stern out to explore and to take a break if he wanted to. Stern obviously went around the precinct, didn’t even bother to socialize. Gavin really saw himself in that kid. Maybe if he tried hard enough, Stern wouldn’t lose that spark.

“Hey, Gav. Tina told me you’ve found another you.” Chris smiled at him as he entered the breakroom. Gavin gave him a half-hearted smile back as he went to get some more coffee.

“Yeah, the resemblance is horrifying.” Gavin joked as he stirred his coffee. Chris offered him some cookies his wife made, and who was he to refuse? “I’m kinda concerned about this kid.”

Chris looked at him as if he just said he’d eat his unborn child. “Gavin Reed? _Concerned?_ Well, the end of the world must be coming!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Gavin snorted before taking a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, yeah. Me bein’ concerned for anyone aside from myself is in itself, concerning. It’s just I think he’s gonna crash and fall in too deep into his job. Push away all else.”

“You mean like you did?”

Gavin stared at his cup as he absentmindedly moved it in circles, creating a little whirlpool in his coffee. Well, that was true, wasn’t it? He did the exact same thing, and look where that got him. Sure, he had the highest case completion rate ever since Anderson decided that the bottle was more important than his actual work, but he also became the resident asshole. No one liked him, and while he didn’t care _(mostly),_ he wasn’t too sure how the rookie would take it.

“Yeah. I just don’t want there to be a Gavin two-point-oh. Like hell am I losing my brand.” He said instead. Chris just laughed softly as he took another cookie.

“Well, just know that there’s only room for one giant asshole in my heart, and that’s you, Gav.” Chris said jokingly. “Besides, Tina and I have already made a bet on who’d yell to Fowler first, and I’m rooting for you to make him do that!”

Gavin huffed a laugh. “Fine. But I get a cut of what you win.”

Chris smiled at him, his genuine smile that he reserved for his family and close friends, and the day went on. Tina eventually made her way off of patrol duty, indulged in some of the cookies Chris’s wife made, and they talked about shit. Told Gavin about their bets repeatedly. And just like that, his break was over. He said his goodbyes to his _(only)_ friends, and went off to look for Stern and saw him sitting by himself on Gavin’s desk, eating some sandwich while scrolling through his phone. 

“Ever the social butterfly, eh?” Gavin said sarcastically as he sat in his chair. “Why’d you end up here by yourself, huh? Did people think you were too big and scary?”

Stern looked up from his phone, seemingly surprised, before a smirk formed on his face. “Nah. I just wanted to be here to annoy you.”

That managed to get a genuine laugh out of Gavin, which somehow surprised both of them, despite Stern’s ever-present smirk. Gavin knew that whatever the fuck this day was going to be, it was going to be a long one. “Well, alright. If you’ve got nothin’ better to do, then I suggest we get back to training. I’ve got some random questions that I just pulled outta my ass about criminal law and shit, and you better be ready to answer them.”

“That can’t be sanitary. Can you get me some other random questions that were procured naturally?”

“Shut the fuck up, I used wet wipes to clean them. Are you ready or not?”

“Yes, Detective.”


	2. Waiting For Hank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **me right before i was going to sleep:** oh right, i forgot! i forgot to do the thing! the important thing. *posts this chapter*

So, the day went kinda well, in Gavin’s opinion. He and Stern somehow managed to work together well enough, Gavin managed to teach Stern some things that he didn’t learn in the police academy, and Stern managed to prove himself to Gavin in terms of competence. Currently, they sat in the middle of the parking lot on the hood of Gavin’s car, both on break.

“So, it’s always good to have a clear goal of what you want to achieve in this job. Helps ya with keepin’ track of what you want to do in this line of work.” Gavin puffed out a breath of cigarette smoke, turning to face Stern. “So I’m askin’ you right now, why’d you choose to become a police officer?”

Stern immediately looked at Gavin with a determined expression, one that gave Gavin a sense of… loss? He didn’t know, and he didn’t ask. “I want to be able to take down the Red Ice dealers. Become like Lieutenant Hank Anderson.”

A smile broke on Stern’s usually either stoic or sarcastic face when he said the last part, which Gavin could understand. No one really knew what Hank Anderson was like anymore, they only remember the youngest lieutenant in Detroit history to ever bust the biggest Red Ice deal. If only they knew that the legendary Hank Anderson was an alcoholic bastard that drank to his heart’s content, leaving most in the DPD to wonder how the fuck he still had his job.

“Hey.” Gavin was brought out of his little reverie by Stern nudging his shoulder gently. There was a misplaced-looking softness on Stern’s features, and if Gavin hadn’t seen Stern’s steely demeanor when he talked about Red Ice dealers, he’d have thought that he was a young kid that was given some sort of candy or whatever. Gavin could’ve sworn that he knew that look from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Do you think that Lieutenant Anderson would like me?”

_ Oh _ , now he remembered that look. The detective huffed and looked away from Stern. “God no. Anderson doesn’t like anybody.”

Stern looked mildly discouraged, but then he put on a determined grin. “Well, guess I’ll have to be the first, then.”

“Just. A word of advice. Never meet your heroes, kid. It’ll only break you.” Gavin said as he looked at Stern, a shit ton of emotions in his eyes, and when Stern only looked at him with that same face of determination that he had once, he turned away once more. Gavin remained quiet for the rest of their break.

Soon enough, their little break ended, and then the day ended too. Gavin stayed late as usual, looking through cold cases and seeing if he could get any warrants and shit, trying to connect more dots. What surprised him was that Stern also stayed back, and began asking him if there was anything he could do to help. Gavin only blinked at him, but Stern just blinked back.

“Uh. Sure.” Gavin said dumbly, before he got back to StrictlyProfessional ™ m ode and brought out a file detailing the murder of someone via springlock crushing. “Try to look through the evidence and see if there’s anything that could connect any of our suspects to the murder of Todd Cawtharne.”

Stern only nodded and sifted through the evidence, occasionally asking Gavin questions about possible motives, the alibis of the suspects, whether or not they could interview a few more possible suspects. Gavin was actually quite surprised with Stern’s work ethic, and how it just seamlessly clicked with Gavin’s own. Several notes between the two of them were shared, Gavin asking Stern for his opinions on some cases, Stern asking him for advice on how to tackle cases, and they just. Worked.

A yawn came out of Stern’s mouth, and Gavin realized that it was nearing midnight now. As much as Gavin would’ve liked to power through these cases and  _ maybe  _ solve at least one of them, he knew that he should probably let Stern go to sleep or something. At least they’d made some progress though. Gavin had been working on this case, as well as many others too much during the past week or so, so he was hella grateful for the help that Stern gave.

Even if he wouldn’t show it.

“We should probably head home right now.” Gavin nudged Stern with his shoulder, rousing the taller man from his thorough investigation. “It’s gettin’ close to midnight. We can just work on this tomorrow or something, if you wanna continue with this.”

Stern furrowed his brows again, huffing as he put a file down. “Detective, I appreciate your concern, but we’re almost done here. We’re  _ this  _ close to finding out who did this, we can’t stop now.”

Gavin let out a huff of resigned laughter. “You think I don’t know that? Yeah, I know that we’re so close to finishin’ these cases, that’s why I’m suggesting we take a break now so that Fowler won’t catch us here in the morning and yell at us to go home and take the rest of the day off!”

The taller man just looked away, whether it was due to shame or arrogance, Gavin couldn’t tell. Honestly, it could’ve been both. Gavin sighed as he shut off his terminal and stood up. “Listen, I know that you’ve got something you wanna prove. I get that. But sometimes we just gotta take a break so that we don’t over-exert ourselves the next morning.”

They sat there in silence for a few moments, before Stern sighed and stood up from his chair as well. They cleaned up their cases, put them back in the evidence room, all that shit, and then they both headed out the door. Stern walked ahead while Gavin locked up, only pausing to give the detective a grateful half-smile and a polite nod before he continued walking off into the night.

Gavin pursed his lips in thought, before he shook his head and headed back to his car. The thoughts of what that smile could’ve meant were lost in sleep.

* * *

As soon as Gavin got to the precinct the next morning, he saw Stern standing right beside the locked entrance. He had to admit, Stern was incredibly punctual and showed a hell of a lot of potential. If he somehow managed to not fuck this up, he might make a good addition to the police force. He unlocked the door, not bothering to wait for Stern to get in, and made his morning coffee. He went back to the evidence room to gather the cases he  _ (with the help of Stern, because while Gavin was an asshole he knew to give credit when it’s due)  _ made a hell of a lot of progress on, laying them out on his desk again to run them through his head again.

Stern immediately followed with a cup of his own, and they just… picked up where they left off. As if they didn’t just stop for like, seven hours. Gavin really didn’t mind this, especially when it meant closing more cases. They kept at it for a few more hours, before Gavin noticed Stern looking at the door every so often. At first, he wondered if Stern was expecting someone to arrive to the DPD, and Gavin thought, ‘hey, none of my business,’ and went on to only bother him if there was something he had to ask him specifically.

“Excuse me, Detective Reed.” Stern asked in the middle of some working on some paperwork. “Did Lieutenant Anderson call in sick today? He hasn’t arrived yet and I’m slightly concerned.”

Gavin snorted and continued to write this goddamn email to get a fucking warrant. “Anderson comes in whenever the fuck he wants. That is, if he even comes in at all.”

Stern’s eyebrows furrowed, he opened his mouth to say something but then he turned to the door as it opened and revealed Hank Anderson - youngest lieutenant in Detroit history to those who don’t know him personally, huge fucking alcoholic to everyone else. Gavin could’ve swore that he saw Stern’s eyes light up like a fucking Christmas tree at the sight, and he had to swallow a few curse words directed at both Stern for being fucking stupid  _ (like Gavin was)  _ and at Anderson for having this idealized persona that he managed to spectacularly shatter for everyone.

“I’m gonna go talk to him.” Stern said somewhat excitedly, standing up from his seat and striding towards him with a look filled with determination. Gavin just huffed and shook his head.

“Fine, but I ain’t saving your ass in case Anderson’s pissy.” He said loud enough for pretty much everyone to hear, and most definitely loud enough for Anderson to hear. Anderson growled in his general direction, and Gavin ignored him, but kept an ear out for any aggression on the drunkard’s end. He didn’t need the rookie to quit because of Hank fucking Anderson, of all people. He needed that goddamn promotion and he was going to get it.

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson.” Stern politely said with a grin in his voice. “I’m Richard Stern, newest hire for the DPD. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Gavin couldn’t see what the fuck was going on right now, his eyes on the monitor like a good worker, but he could guess that Anderson was eyeing Stern up and down. Anderson scoffed and growled at Stern, irritation clear in his voice. “Ah, new hire, eh? What, Fowler thinks he can replace me now, is that it?”

“N-No, I don’t think-” Stern stuttered out before a bunch of gasps echoed through the precinct. Gavin looked away from his monitor and saw that Anderson grabbed Stern by the collar of his shirt and lifted him up, despite Stern having a few inches over him. 

“Shit.” Gavin mumbled as he stood up from his seat, making his way towards the scuffle. “Anderson, get off him, you old fuck! You’re gonna get yourself fired!”

“What?! You come here to fucking gloat?! Fuck you!” Anderson didn’t even act like he heard Gavin and threw Stern to the ground and raised a foot to kick the man while he’s down. On one hand, Stern really should’ve heeded Gavin’s advice. On the other hand, there was no way in hell that Gavin would let Stern crash and become a bitter asshole like him. Especially not because of Hank fucking Anderson. 

Gavin punched Hank Anderson in the face, like he’d always wanted to.

Hank stumbled back, and turned to attack Gavin instead, to which the younger detective punched him on the other side of his face. Gavin didn’t really want to beat a drunk old man into unconsciousness, because that’d put a helluva big mark on his disciplinary folder, but fuck it, if he wanted to beat up his former hero, he  _ was  _ going to do that.

He didn’t give Anderson a fucking chance to recover from the previous punch, kneeing him in his stomach before he remembered that Anderson could fucking vomit from that and immediately recoiled. Apparently, that recoil was all Anderson needed to be able to tackle Gavin and pin him to the ground. Gavin spat in his face as best as he could, which only seemed to enrage Anderson enough to give him a new black eye. A shame that Tina and Chris were on patrol. They would’ve loved to see Gavin’s new shiner.

They wrestled on the ground, all before Fowler’s voice rang loud and clear like a police siren.

“Anderson! Reed! In my office,  _ NOW!” _

Well, that somehow managed to get Anderson to loosen his chokehold on Gavin, so it wasn’t like he was complaining. Anderson muttered some obscenities as he trudged to Fowler’s office, straightening himself out, as if the bloody nose wasn’t a big giveaway to whatever the fuck just happened.

Of course, Anderson took the only chair in Fowler’s office that was reserved for people who were not Fowler, so Gavin decided to lean against the glass wall. He wasn’t going to fight an old man on the fucking chair, not in front of Fowler at least. Fowler glared at them from his position from across his desk. “Could any of you explain why the fuck both of you look like you came out of a barfight?!”

“Ask Reed, he’s the one who started it!” Hank yelled at Fowler, getting up from his chair to put one arm on Fowler’s desk and to point the other at Gavin. “Fuckin’ asshole always starts shit!”

Gavin only raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

Fowler pinched the bridge of his nose, grumbling something that sounded like  _ ‘I swear to god’  _ and  _ ‘again?’ _ , before he sighed and resumed his glaring. “Reed, did you throw the first punch?”

“Yeah.” Gavin admitted. No use in lying to Fowler anyway. “Anderson wouldn’t stand down, so I made him back off.”

“Why would he need to stand down?” Fowler asked exasperatedly, before he waved off whatever answer he was about to receive. “Y’know what, nevermind. Don’t let this happen again, or else you’re both suspended for a month!”

Anderson began to yell, whatever the fuck he said was lost to Gavin, who just nodded and left the office, which Fowler seemed grateful for. “You got it, Cap.”

Gavin went back to his desk and put his feet up and scrolled through his phone as if he didn’t just get his ass beat. He could already hear the others talking about him, something about setting Stern up to rile Anderson so that he could have a reason to punch him. Joke’s on them, Gavin didn’t need a reason to punch assholes.

“Um. Detective.” Gavin looked up from his phone to see Stern, hesitantly approaching him with an ice pack. Gavin didn’t need to look in his eyes to see the absolute hurt and confusion in his eyes, he knew how it felt like to have your hero just beat the shit out of you. “I… I brought you an ice pack.”

_ I wouldn’t be in this situation if you just fuckin’ listened to me.  _ Gavin thought.

“Thanks.” He said instead, closing his bruised eye as he pressed the cool package to it. “You didn’t have to.”

Stern just sat on his desk, fidgeting with a pen that was in his mug-turned-pen-holder. “I… I just wanted to thank you. For intervening. And to apologize for not taking your advice.”

Gavin simply nodded and they sat there in relative silence, the only noise coming from their coworkers’ gossiping and the clicking of keys and shuffling of papers from those who were actually working. A few moments passed, before Stern looked to Gavin with some sort of… emotion, in his eyes.

“So, what division do you work in, Detective?”

“Homicide. Get to look at a bunch of bodies and shit. Fun.” Gavin laughed softly. “Why’d ya ask?”

“...no reason.” Stern said looking somewhat shyly, before flashing him a small smile. Gavin ignored the churn of his stomach. He wasn’t feeling that because Stern smiled at him. It was the hunger. 

And maybe if he said that to himself enough, he’d believe it.


	3. Case and Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to celexdraw AGAIN for drawing more for this fic,,,, i'm love,,, you idijfsakflmsdfma
> 
> also **fun fact of the day:** i thought that it was saturday night right now and was like "wait, wasn't i supposed to update a fic yesterday?" and panicked for three and a half seconds before realizing "oh, it's not the twelfth, it's not saturday, i am exactly on time to update. huh"

For some reason, Gavin got along better with Stern after the whole incident with Anderson. If getting beat up was the way to make friends, Gavin should’ve been the most popular person in the precinct by now. Jokes aside, Gavin found himself tolerating Stern more and more as the days passed by. Whether it was because he gave back as much shit as he got, or because he saw himself in the officer-in-training, Gavin didn’t know, nor did he want to. 

Gavin went on to the breakroom to get himself caffeinated, and he saw Tina and Chris just hanging out at their usual table. He gave them a short nod in lieu of a greeting, making his coffee just the way he liked it before joining them at the table. Tina was in the middle of telling a story about some hot woman she encountered, while Chris nodded along as if he got whatever the fuck she was saying.

“Gavin! I heard you and that Stern kid are hitting it off well.” Chris interrupted Tina’s rambling, which she didn’t seem to mind. Gavin only nodded as he sipped his coffee.

“Yeah. Who knows, we might have a new person to bitch to.”

Tina laughed in that loud way that she usually did, while Chris chuckled _tHe PoLiTe_ way. Tina leaned in closer to Gavin, eyes filled with wonder. “How’d you even do that? Last I checked, you guys weren’t exactly on speaking terms unless it had to do with work.”

Ah, right. Gavin _conveniently_ forgot to tell them what happened ever since they patrolled together that day. He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee, looking out for any sign of either Stern or Anderson. “Well, Anderson decided to get all pissed, so I decided to deck him. One ice pack later, we’re besties now or whatever.”

Both Chris and Tina’s eyes widened, but only Chris yelled at him this time. “You told me that was from a fight with some drunk guy!”

“Was I wrong?” Gavin challenged, to which Chris sighed and muttered a ‘no’. Gavin shook his head. “Besides, I wasn’t just gonna let him beat up some kid who looked up to him. I may be an asshole but I’m not an asshole, y’know?”

The two of them nodded, before the conversation suddenly came to who would win in a fight: Slenderman or Jeff the Killer. Gavin had mostly tuned out of that, his attention focused on Stern, who was working on Gavin’s desk since he didn’t have his own desk yet. Stern seemed to notice him looking and flashed him that stupid fucking smile that made Gavin feel Emotions™ before looking back to the screen with that dumb look still on his face. Gavin shook his head and hid his face in his mug, only to find both Chris and Tina looking behind him.

Right at where Stern was sitting. _Shit._

__

“Looks like you guys are getting along a little too well.” Chris commented, which would’ve been enough to make Gavin flush a bright shade of red, but _no_. Tina just had to yell.

“You dumb bitch! You didn’t tell me you had a crush on the new guy!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Gavin glared at them as he sipped his coffee. 

Tina just laughed louder and Chris shook his head in faux-disappointment. “It looks like we’re never gonna get anything out of our bets, Tee.”

After a bit of ribbing, Gavin was somehow able to steer the conversation towards Tina’s totally-not-a-crush on the receptionist who may or may not be into her too. Even though Gavin was heavily invested in Tina’s love life, he _did_ think about what Chris and Tina said. Because to be fair, Stern was objectively attractive, and he’d actually come to enjoy their banter quite a bit. But the question still stood: was he gay for Stern or were they just two really good friends?

Gavin knew that if he had to ask that question, then the answer was obvious. He chose to ignore that fact.

Either way, as soon as their break ended, Gavin returned to his desk, where Stern gathered up a list of cases that were _definitely not_ in the pile of cold cases that they were working on. Gavin only raised an eyebrow.

“You have a few new cases, Detective. I wanted to tag along with you, kind of like training.” Stern said as he laid out the files in front of Gavin. The detective studied each file and well, it’s homicide, what did he expect? He looked up from the files and saw Stern’s fidgeting which he tried to hide under his determined look.

“You sure you wanna deal with this, Dick?” Gavin asked as he put the files down. “Not that I don’t want you there, it’s just you’ve likely never seen a body before, and uh. It can mess up a bunch of people.”

Stern didn’t even bristle at Gavin’s nickname for him, his face still had that stupid grin that said ‘I will make things difficult on purpose’. “Wouldn’t it be better if I saw dead bodies right now? That way I’d be able to handle them when it becomes more important!”

Gavin merely sighed and shook his head, before he picked up a file and headed out to the entrance. Stern seemed absolutely ecstatic at the development and followed him with long strides, already discussing whatever the case might be like based on the phone call and what the first responders have said about the scene.

As they got into Gavin’s car, Stern immediately put on his seatbelt, advised Gavin to do the same, and like that they were off. Stern was tapping his finger on his thigh as he stared out the window, starting sentences but cutting them off before Gavin could glean any information about whatever he was going to say.

“Feelin’ nervous?” Gavin asked as he turned a hard left into some good old Detroit traffic. Stern’s tapping stopped momentarily, before picking up the pace once the car started moving again.

“Kind of.” Stern admitted. “I’m unsure if I’ll be a help or a hindrance when we get there.”

Gavin looked at him for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the road. “Well, technically you’re still an officer-in-training. We’ll be there just to teach you things, and if you do fuck something up, I won’t leave a negative review on your performance or whatever.”

Stern didn’t say anything else, but from Gavin’s occasional glances he could see the ghost of a smile appear on Stern’s lips.

They arrived at the scene of the crime, Dreampoint Security Systems — a place where people got _“great security for great dreams at a cheap price”_ — where a bunch of officers stood guard in front of the yellow tape. Gavin lifted the tape high enough for him to duck his head under and walked in deeper to where the body was, Stern following him diligently. Officer Person led them deeper into the building, down some stairs and into the basement.

The basement was dark and damp, the only lights coming from the flashlights they had and a single flickering lightbulb overhead. Water dripped from the pipes ahead, and Gavin could already see the mold growing from corners of the room. Crates and cabinets lined the walls, making it look more like a storage room than an actual basement. The victim was placed in the furthest corner from the stairs, right in front of a filled garbage chute.

“The vic’s been identified as one Jamie Pogger, she was an accountant at Dreampoint Security Systems.” Officer Person told them as she gestured towards the victim’s body. From a cursory glance, Gavin could see that the accountant was stabbed with some sort of pointed object. “Pogger was found here by one of the maintenance workers. We don’t know if there were any drugs in her system, we’re still waiting for narcotics to arrive.”

“Alright, thanks Person.” Gavin waved her off as Stern walked around the room, eyeing everything he could. “Got anything, Dick?”

Stern seemed surprised to be addressed, but he carried himself with an air of determination nonetheless. “It looks like the victim had been stabbed using something that wasn’t long enough to pierce through thoroughly, so it could be either an incredibly small knife, a shard of glass, or some sort of keys or something.”

Gavin nodded as he surveyed the scene a bit more, identifying all possible entrances and exits and began talking at Stern. “So, pretty much everyone has their own way of gathering evidence. For example, mine is to take a look at all the shit in here before actually investigating the body, Jones likes to poke around the body first, yadda yadda yadda. The point is, we all aim to find out what happened here.”

Stern looked at him with furrowed brows yet nodded anyway. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this, Detective?”

“Sure is, Dick.” Gavin eyed the surroundings, clocking a glass shard thrown into the dump chute, with what looked like both blood and some fingerprints. He put his gloves on and grabbed the shard, putting it in an evidence bag. Stern looked mildly impressed that Gavin found that in the amount of time it took to call him a dick. “The reason is that everyone has their own way of investigating shit, and there is no one right way to do it. There’s just shit that works, and things that don’t.”

The officer-in-training nodded and then looked around the room, pacing the perimeter until he spotted something. “Broken security camera, stashed behind this crate.”

“Good eye.” Gavin praised. They looked around some more, trading insights and shit, up until Gavin deemed that they’ve surveyed the scene enough. They got back to their car, Stern offering to drive. Which, god, Gavin could get used to. He decided to take a short nap in the car, telling Stern not to wake him up unless he was either dying or had coffee. Stern breathed what sounded like a laugh, so Gavin took that as a win and fell asleep a few minutes after.

When Stern woke him up, they weren’t at the precinct. He looked around, recognizing this being someplace in downtown Detroit. Gavin furrowed his brows and looked to Stern for an explanation. Stern had the nerve to look flustered, tapping on the wheel nervously as he stuttered through his words. “W-Well. I just wanted to thank you. For uh. Putting up with me. And defending me from… yeah. If you don’t want to, we could always just head back-”

Gavin laughed and shook his head. “Alright then. But you’re paying.”

Stern’s eyes widened and Gavin swore that he saw sparkles in those ice blue eyes. Like, actual fucking sparkles. Before Gavin could comment on it, Stern immediately got up and out of the car, strode towards the entrance and waited for the detective.

Gavin got up and entered the cheesy-looking coffee shop named ‘Sweet Dreams’, Stern walking directly in front of him as he talked excitedly about how this was his favorite cafe that he’d stumbled upon thus far. Once they got their drinks _(and a croissant, which Stern insisted Gavin try),_ they sat down at one of the outdoor tables, shielded from the sun by a bright yellow umbrella.

“So, my brother comes in and just whacks the guy on the head.” Stern shook his head at the memory. Gavin was quite enraptured by Stern’s story. No, he wasn’t enraptured by Stern himself, shut the fuck up. God, he was multi-track drifting into both sides of ‘partner’, and he was gonna fucking crash for sure.

“Older brothers are _wild_.” Gavin said as he looked directly at Stern. Straight guys looked at their straight friends, right? “Honestly, if I had an older brother, I’d be the nicer one by comparison.”

Stern snorted. “If Connor heard you say that, he’d act all like a wounded puppy. _‘How could your friend say that about me, Nines?! I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, ever!’_ ”

“Nines?”

“Ah, yeah. My brother’s nickname for me.” Stern leaned back in his seat, arm draped over the back of the chair. “It’s ‘cause I was born on September 9th at 9:09PM. I always gave him shit for it, because that was an _absolutely stupid_ reason to give a nickname, but it’s stuck I guess.”

The way Stern smiled as he spoke gave Gavin more Emotions™, which Gavin was starting to realize weren’t just feelings of being really great friends. Stern looked up at him, his eyes still poised in a way that said he trusted Gavin, that he wanted to be with him like this very moment, before he spoke softly. “You can call me Nines, if you want. I think we’re past the point of calling each other by our surnames.”

Gavin returned Stern- _Nines_ ’s dumb grin with one of his own, rubbing across the scar on his nose. “Well then, you can call me Gavin. Or Detective Dick, your choice.”

Nines laughed that one laugh which seemed to be reserved for people he was close with. And y’know what? Fuck it. Gavin was irrevocably falling for him.


	4. B̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶s̶

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **me, posts last chapter with that 'oops i almost forgot to update' note:** *actually forgot to update last night whoops*

Nines stood in front of Sweet Dreams, occasionally checking the time. He’d been there for a couple minutes now which, okay. So he liked to be incredibly early because he had a fear of being late and being considered a failure. So what? The point was that they had agreed on being there by 2:30PM and it was 3:05PM now and that only meant that his brother didn’t like him enou-

“Hey!”

Nines looked over to see his brother bounding towards him, waving enthusiastically and catching his breath. Nines sighed a breath of relief that could’ve easily been interpreted as an annoyed sigh and stared at his brother. “You’re thirty-five minutes late, Con.”

Connor gave him that small  _ “shy” _ smile that he did whenever he wanted to convince people to forgive him for whatever he did wrong  _ (it didn’t work on Nines though, it lost its effect years ago) _ . “Well, you know how it is. My job’s been kicking my ass.”

“Right. You said that last month too, and honestly, I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t want to hang out with me anymore.” Nines said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes. Well, mostly sarcastically. He also had a fear that everyone just tolerated him and didn’t actually want to hang out with him, but the point was that Connor kept using his goddamn private investigation business as his excuse every time he was late and that was actually pissing Nines off.

Connor snorted and shook his head. “No, but seriously. I’ve been getting more cases lately. Ever since the Carson Case, people have been flocking to me like crazy!”

Nines only raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. Connor then began explaining all the things he’d been up to as they got in line to order some coffee. He talked on and on, while Nines just listened attentively with a small smile on his face. One of the pros of having Connor as his brother was that Connor could talk for the both of them with minimal input from Nines. He could always carry a conversation with anyone, while Nines could only talk so much before getting burned out.

“So, I went home and checked my emails, expecting some more of the usual junk mail, but then I did a double take and just saw a shit ton of cases! Just like that!” Connor gestured wildly with his hands  _ (even the one holding a coffee, which Nines was concerned about spilling), _ a huge grin plastered on his face. “Anyway, enough about me. What about you?”

“Well, I’m an officer-in-training at the DPD, so that’s fun.” Nines said as nonchalantly as he could. “I’ve got this guy who’s my partner, he doesn’t take any shit from me, that’s a relief.”

“Oh yeah! God, I swear, you pissed off your police buddies so much that they wanted to sabotage you!”Connor laughed as he recalled the memory. Nines smiled too and shook his head.

“Yeah, it’s great. We just shit on each other and we’re friends now.”  _ Or at least, I hope we are. _

Connor let out a good-natured laugh and looked at Nines with an edge of teasing in his eyes. “Leave it to Richard Stern to find someone who can stand him only because he’s  _ also  _ an asshole.”

Nines flipped him off, and they both laughed before settling into a comfortable sort of quiet. The rest of the world faded away as they took in the sweet silence. To Nines, all that mattered was him, Connor, and the coffee they shared.

“I’ve missed this.” Nines admitted quietly. He looked into his drink, only barely missing the sigh his brother let out as he grabbed his hand.

“Me too, Nines.” Connor gave him a bittersweet smile. “I promise, I’ll try to make more time for you. How ‘bout we get started on those nightly Discord calls, huh?”

Nines smiled at his brother. A genuine one. When had they last talked like this? He didn’t know. Between his police training and Connor’s PI business, they really didn’t have too much time to just sit down and talk. Nines grabbed Connor’s arm in a Predator handshake. “I’d like that.” 

After that, the air seemed lighter around the two brothers, and after they finished their drinks, they paced around the streets, no direction in mind. They talked about what they’ve been doing in their free time, at which Connor told Nines about pet-sitting a wonderful dog named Ace. Nines just said that he’s been pretty busy with work, telling Connor about how he and his partner stayed ‘til midnight to work on cold cases.

“Oh, yeah!” Connor suddenly interrupted Nines in the middle of his story. Shame. He was just about to get to the part when Gavin shoved a- “Did you get to meet your famed Lieutenant?”

Oh. That. Nines grunted and turned away from Connor. “Yeah, but… it didn’t quite go as I’d hoped.”

Connor looked at Nines sympathetically, patting him on the back gently. “What happened?”

“Well, I just wanted to talk to him, and then he got mad at me because I was ‘trying to replace’ him.” Nines said bitterly. He huffed as he kicked a random rock on the street. “Guess I should’ve taken Reed’s advice on not meeting my heroes.”

Connor held Nines closer to himself, gently rubbing his shoulders to try to ease the tension. “Sorry to hear that, Nines, but you’ve gotta understand, Anderson’s been through a lot.”

Nines scrunched his brows and looked at Connor as if he just said that he’d accidentally ingested a dildo  _ (which did almost happen once) _ . “What?”

“I’m just saying, he lost his kid not too long ago.” Connor raised his hands defensively.

“Losing his kid six years ago doesn’t give him the right to threaten me, Con!” Nines growled in his brother’s face, which only looked surprised for a moment, before his eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed in what looked to be a mix of both disbelief and frustration.

“We lost Conrad five years ago, and look at you! Gunning to be a cop.” Connor snapped, his arms waving wildly. Nines flinched backwards, but Connor kept moving forward. “You know, how long it took for us to grieve him, hell! You probably still haven’t stopped grieving him!”

“Stop it.” Nines said weakly as he was backed into a wall by his older brother. “Con, I get it! Please stop!”

“You think that Conrad would’ve wanted this? You being a cop who resents another cop because he lost someone?”

Nines really fucked up now, didn’t he? Of course Connor would bring up the reason Nines wanted to be a cop in the first place.  _ Of fucking course,  _ he’d bring up their dead brother. Tears pricked Nines’s eyes, and one moment he could see, the next moment his vision was too blurred with tears. His breathing grew rampant,  _ he couldn’t breath, he needed to  _ **_get out-_ **

He ran.

He ran as far away as he could from wherever the fuck they were walking from. Ran until his legs gave up and he could no longer hear Connor’s words echoing through his mind. Until the memories of Conrad’s snarky attitude and the last day they saw him before he got forcefully injected with a lethal dose of Red Ice faded away. Nines wiped the tears away, standing in front of an unfamiliar apartment building.

A buzz in his pocket reminded him that he still had his phone. He elected to ignore it, thinking that it was Connor trying to contact him  _ (probably to yell at him some more, because he’s such a failure),  _ but it buzzed two more times. He pulled it out with the intention of putting it on silent so he wouldn’t have to hear from Connor, but found a few text messages. From Gavin.

**Detective Dick DPD (Gavin) [17:01]:** hey 9s   
**Detective Dick DPD (Gavin) [17:01]:** u free this sat??   
**Detective Dick DPD (Gavin) [17:01]:** theres this movie in the starlight theater that i think ud like

Oh. Gavin. His… friend? Would he be considered a friend to the detective? Sure, he invited him over to meet his friends, but would that mean that they were friends? Before he could let the tears fall again, he hit dial and put the phone up to his ear. It rung four times before Gavin picked up.

“Heya.” Gavin said warmly. “Already missin’ my voice, Dick?”

Nines let out a soft chuckle mixed with some tears. Looks like he cried after all. Mother would’ve marked him as a failure for sure. “Y-Yep. Let’s go with that.”

There was a brief silence. Gavin probably heard his crying. For a moment, Nines thought that Gavin would ask why he was crying. But then- “Do you want me to tell you about how I almost got a cat into my apartment?”

“Yeah. I-... I’d love to hear that.” Nines replied. “Doesn’t your a-apartment have a no pets allowed rule in it?”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing.” Gavin’s voice was… comforting. It was nice. It was  _ safe _ . “The cat looked like a toy, and I swear to god it would just stay still for the longest amount of time.”

And just like that, Gavin told Nines more stories, more tidbits about his life, and Nines just walked and walked until he somehow reached home without encountering- No. No thoughts about him. He laughed softly at Gavin’s tale about Tina’s newest crush as he unlocked his door, heading inside the dull apartment. He locked the door and immediately crashed on the couch, having exhausted both his physical and emotional energy.

“Hey.” Nines said as he closed his eyes. “Can you… keep talking? Just until I fall asleep.”

“Yeah. Alright.” Gavin replied, and for once, Nines couldn’t be bothered to overthink it. He just took it face-value. Gavin began telling him a story about how he’d always wanted a cat, but decided against it due to his work and because the landlord threw a hissy fit because of the whole ‘toy cat’ incident.

Nines fell asleep on the couch, not worried about anything. He was safe.


	5. Shot Through The Heart (And You're To Blame)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what? a filler chapter? in this book? absolutely not, no way haha. there is absolutely no way that this is just a filler chapter that i wrote for seemingly no reason. nuh uh.

Gavin didn’t mention whatever the fuck happened last night. It wasn’t really his business why it sounded like Nines was crying anyway, so he didn’t bother with it. It seemed like he made the right choice, because as soon as he mentioned wanting to go to an airsoft arena to go see if his aim was as perfect as his tests results said, Nines relaxed visibly. Either way, they were right in there, and Gavin should really shut the fuck up with these thoughts because he’s going to get shot _(with airsoft bullets, not like, real bullets)_.

Currently, Gavin was out on the battlefield with Nines, engaged in a doubles match with eleven other duos. It started off pretty well, in Gavin’s opinion. Both he and Nines were able to creep towards higher ground, and they just sniped people as well as they could with airsoft pistols.

“Nice.” Gavin remarked as they shot another pair, before ducking down beneath the wall of the dilapidated building they were hiding at. He perked his head up as he heard some people walking closer towards them, no doubt having heard where the shots were coming from. He gave Nines a ‘sh!’ motion, before gesturing for him to cross the other side of the stairs.

As expected, two people crossed the stairs, already alert and looking for a fight. Gavin saw Nines’s head peek out from behind one of the doors, brows furrowed as if he was asking what to do. Gavin mimed walking the duo walking further before surprising them with a barrage of bullets as best he could, the only confirmation that Nines got any of that was his slow nod after a few seconds of just staring with the occasional blink. Gavin rolled his eyes as Nines went back into hiding, before shooting at one of the enemies, alerting them to his position.

The two people jumped away from where the bullet whizzed past them and walked towards where Gavin was. He sure hoped that Nines knew what that meant, because if he got shot and so did Nines, he was _going_ to kick Nines’s ass personally. Gavin heard the hushed whispers of the pair who were most likely about to shoot him now, before he suddenly heard a shot coming from Nines’s direction.

Judging by the string of curses that came from one of the enemies, Gavin chanced it and rose up, shooting the other guy in the back while she tried to fire at Nines. The pair groaned as they realized that they were out, muttering ‘GG’ as they went out of the building. Gavin went out of hiding simply just to high five Nines, hella glad that he wasn’t turned down by the rookie and also that he didn’t get shot by someone.

Eventually, they were forced out of their hiding spot by the referee, saying something about how since there were only three teams left they’d all have to meet up in the center of the arena for an all-out battle royale. Honestly, Gavin just wanted to win, and based on the look of determination on Nines’s face, he did too. They crept in closer towards the center, mindful of any opposing forces and making sure that their guns were loaded.

As soon as they got there, they were immediately assaulted by bullets coming from different directions. Gavin bit back a curse as he ducked down and shot at some of the shooters, unsure if he hit any of them but not backing down. He got up, shooting a few more bullets towards where he last heard the fight, leaning behind a pillar as he reloaded his clip.

His eyes darted around for Nines, because where the fuck was he? Unfortunately, he didn’t find Nines, instead, he found someone with a loaded rifle firing at him. He quickly dodged the attack, sprinting towards another pillar, firing a few shots at his attacker. None of them hit, but luckily for him, none of the enemy fire hit him either.

Gavin cursed as he realized that he was on his last clip, reloading his gun as quickly as he could. The sound of heavy footsteps came closer, and Gavin knew that he had only a few seconds to react. Taking in a deep breath, Gavin peeked out from behind the pillar, shooting one pellet which his attacker dodged narrowly and raised his gun, before suddenly-

_Bang!_

His attacker groaned and took off his mask, muttering curses as he stormed off the battlefield. From somewhere further back, Gavin saw a glimpse of Nines putting his gun back and hiding behind a fence. Making a note to thank and congratulate Nines for that shot, Gavin surveyed the arena from his hiding spot. He heard a few shots from somewhere on his left, and some more from his right. Judging by the frequency of the shots, there was probably a pair on his right and likely the lone survivor of another pair to his left. Gavin figured that he’d have better luck dealing with the pair, considering they probably wouldn’t expect to see him.

Five shots left. He had to make them count.

He aimed his pistol at the enemy that just dodged a bullet and fired - not giving his enemy a chance to realize what was happening. His shot probably alerted both of the enemy teams, so Gavin moved somewhere else. Apparently, somewhere else turned out to be right next to the guy whose partner he just shot, but that was alright. He still had enough ammo to at least get her into Nines’s field of vision.

Gavin engaged with her, firing a shot in where he predicted she’d go. Miss. She pointed her gun at him, and he was faced with a barrage of pellets, Gavin found himself considerably lucky to have avoided all those shots. He shot twice more, both missing, as the enemy jumped and sprinted from corner to corner.

Two shots left.

He narrowly missed getting shot in the leg, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, his heart thud-thud-t _hudding_ rapidly against his chest. He got his chance the very next second, his shot hitting her inches from where her heart was. Unlike the others he’d shot down, she simply sighed and shook her head, walking off without a word. Gunshots rang behind him, as Gavin assumed Nines was fighting the other combatant.

One shot left. It’s go time.

Gavin poked his head from behind the wall, spotting the ongoing battle between Nines and the other guy, a storm of bullets coming from both ends, although he noticed that Nines was slightly more recycling with his shots. Gavin took a deep breath as he raised his pistol up, pointing straight at the enemy’s forehead. A loud bang echoed through the arena as both Nines and his opponent saw the shot coming closer, _closer-_

Miss.

Their enemy pointed his gun towards Gavin, pulled the trigger, but his aim was pushed off by the impact of a pellet against his side. Nines got up from his space as their opponent clutched his side, before giving them a nonchalant golf clap. Gavin took off his mask, fist pumping in the air as Nines rushed towards him, grinning like an idiot. _(To be fair, they both were.)_

“We did it!” Nines exclaimed while trying to catch his breath. “We actually did it!”

“Yeah. Guess you’re a good shot after all, huh?” Gavin teased, which got an eye roll and a soft smile from Nines. Gavin counted that as a win. “Let’s get out of here.”

Nines agreed without complaint, walking towards the lobby to get some sort of certificate for winning or something. As they got out of the airsoft arena, the sun was starting to set, bathing the city in a myriad of warm yellows and oranges. Both Gavin and Nines headed over to yet another one of the coffee shops that Nines found, this one called ‘Bean Heaven’.

Gavin sat down at a table outside, idly tapping on the polished wood. He'd be lying if he said that he hadn't grown fond of Nines Stern. He'd also be lying if he said that he wasn't planning on asking him out right here, right now. So, bolstering his courage, Gavin sighed and looked at Nines as he returned from inside the shop, drinks in hand.

“Hey so, I was thinking-” Gavin began, up until his radio pinged with a message.

_“Dispatch, we got a 10-35, 0900 on 31st Street, Block 2, Lot 4.”_

“That’s close to where we are.” Nines noted as he took a sip from his coffee. “We should investigate.”

Gavin sighed and muttered into his radio. “Dispatch, Reed here. Coming into the scene in about fifteen, over.”

The two of them stood up at nearly the exact same time, gathering their things and sipping their coffee as they headed to the car. They got in and drove in relative silence on Gavin’s end, only responding to questions that he deemed relevant to the case.

“Oh hey.” Nines straightened up as they got to the scene. “What were you gonna say earlier?”

“Hm?” Gavin replied with faux disinterest.

“You were going to tell me something earlier.”

_‘Will you go out with me?’_ Gavin wanted to say.

“Oh. I forgot. Probably wasn’t important.” He mumbled instead. Nines looked at him as if he didn’t believe him, but thankfully dropped the subject.

Gavin walked into the crime scene, a normal-looking house, absolutely generic. Trash can out front, flowerbeds near the door, a goddamn white picket fence, the whole shebang just screamed cookie-cutter household. On the porch sat a woman who looked like she was crying, being consoled by an officer. Gavin paid no attention to her, choosing to interrogate her later. Officer Collins was surveying the scene with Chris, nodding Gavin over.

“What’ve we got?” Gavin asked while he looked around the room.

“Jeremy Hawthorne, 29 years old, husband to Amelie Hawthorne. Slit throat. Dragged over here from the bedroom, it seems.” Collins responded. Gavin only nodded and took note of all the possible entrances and exits. No sign of a break-in so far.

Nines paced around the house as well, getting back to Gavin a few moments after. “There doesn’t appear to be any signs of a struggle, and the blood trails back here to the body. It doesn’t look like whoever moved the body was capable of lifting him, judging by the thicker blood pools at certain points.”

“No murder weapon?” Gavin leaned in closer, finding a stray hair on the victim’s corpse that _definitely_ did not look like it belonged to his wife.

“None that I could find. Perhaps the killer may have hidden it somewhere.” Nines responded. “I could go check out the perimeter just in case?”

“You do that.” Gavin put on some gloves and plucked the hair, placing it in an evidence bag. “I’m gonna go ask the wife a few questions, try to figure out if there were any witnesses.”

Nines simply nodded and went out through the backdoor, while Gavin strode towards the woman who seemed unconsolable. “Miss?”

The woman looked up at him, tears spilling from her eyes, but there was just something… _off,_ about them. “Yes, sir?”

“I’m Detective Gavin Reed from the DPD, I came here to investigate your husband’s death.” Gavin said softly to her, ignoring the feeling in his gut that there was something definitely wrong with her. “I’m sorry for your loss, mind if I ask you a few questions?”

The woman nodded solemnly as Gavin sat down beside her. “Thanks. Were you the one to discover him?”

“Y-Yes, Detective. I came home just about thirty minutes ago.” Amelie sniffled.

Gavin patted her back in what he hoped was a consoling manner. “What were you doing before you got home?”

“I was walking my dog. I talked to Helen for a while, a-and then when I got home I just see-” The woman broke out into tears once more, her face turned red as great sobs caused her to tremble. Gavin looked up just in time to see Nines rummaging through the trash, seemingly undeterred by the stench or health risks of sticking your arm into garbage. At least he had gloves on.

“It’ll be alright, Miss Hawthorne.” Gavin gave her two firm pats on the back. “We’ll find out who killed your husband and bring them to justice.”

Seeing as Hawthorne didn’t react aside from more tears, Gavin walked up to see Nines, elbow deep in a multitude of undesirable things like rotten fruit and used condoms. “How’s it goin’, Stern?”

Nines said nothing, although his eyebrows did shoot up as he yanked his arm back. In his hand was a knife, perfectly shaped, not broken or anything, as well as a pair of bunched up gloves. The gloves were made of a dark fabric with dark stains, yet upon closer inspection on some of the darker patches led both Gavin and Nines to believe that they were bloodstains.

“Good find.” Gavin praised as he brought out a few evidence bags, which Nines unceremoniously plopped the knife and the gloves in. “Any thoughts on who the murderer is yet, or do you need me to hold your hand and walk you through it?”

Nines let out a snort and flipped him off as he stood up. “The wife killed him?”

“You read my mind, big guy.” Gavin said before he called out to the others telling them that they were done there. He motioned for Nines to get back to the car, and after that they drove to the precinct. Nines talked animatedly about how it’s gonna feel to close his first case as an officer-in-training, Gavin only half-listening to him as he turned on the radio.

> _And I pray to god to give me strength_
> 
> _'Cause your beauty makes me weak_
> 
> _But I'm not lying_
> 
> _I feel like crashing right into you_


	6. Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, i didn't know how to make her confess naturally so she just confesses out of the blue lmao
> 
> also, let's just assume that her rights have already been read to her when she was detained, yeah?
> 
> also also, next update's on christmas, hell yeah!!

“Nervous?” Gavin asked Nines as they entered the precinct. Nines tried to shrug nonchalantly, and to most people he would’ve looked like he wasn’t about to freak out. But with Gavin already accepting the fact that he was falling for him, he allowed himself to look at Nines a lot more, which in turn allowed him to notice more things about him: like how he stared dead ahead whenever he didn’t want to think about something.

“I wouldn’t blame ya. I mean, Fowler’s gonna be watching you and determining whether you actually learned shit from me.” Gavin placed an arm around Stern’s shoulders, pleasantly surprised when he even seemed to just go along with it. “Try not to make me look bad.”

Nines huffed out a nervous laugh as they walked towards one of the interrogation rooms. “Fuck off. I got this.”

Gavin looked at him with a reassuring smile, pulling him closer when he didn’t reject it. “I know you do. Knock ‘em dead, Stern.”

Visibly relaxing, Nines nodded and walked towards the interrogation room. Fowler was standing in front of the glass, beside Anderson for some reason. Gavin shared a look with Nines, but neither of them said anything. Fowler nodded at Nines, crossing his arms. “I’m gonna cut to the point here, Stern. This is going to be your last test before I decide whether or not you’ll get to be an officer here at my precinct. Make it count.”

“Of course, sir.” Nines nodded back, just as Chris and Tina brought a kicking and screaming Amelie Hawthorne through to the interrogation room. Fowler tilted his head, a sign for Nines to go ahead, and he did so with the confidence of the prettiest bitch in the city, brushing past Anderson with a single glance back at Gavin. “See ya on the other side, partner.”

Nines entered the room just as Chris and Tina hightailed it out of there, Amelie sitting on the chair, disgruntled and looking pissed as fuck. Anderson scoffed and leaned in towards Fowler, muttering under his breath. “Reed’s rubbed off on that Stern kid too much.”

“Richard Stern is a highly competent officer, judging by the results that Reed has given me, unlike your drunk ass who can’t even manage to go to work on time.” Fowler snapped back without even looking at Anderson or raising his voice. “So shut the fuck up, and listen.”

_ What a power move.  _ Gavin thought to himself as Nines got himself settled in front of Hawthorne. Chris and Tina stood beside Gavin, all intent on watching Nines. Tina whistled at Nines, patting Gavin on the back. “I’ve really got to hand it to him, he knows how to compose himself.”

“Yeah man.” Chris tilted his head slightly, as if doing that would give him a better view of Nines’s interrogation tactics  _ (...or did it actually do that? Gavin didn’t know).  _ “He looks incredibly chill.”

Whatever Gavin was going to say next, it was cut off by Amelie finally speaking up in actual words instead of screaming. “I don’t  understand why you’re keeping me here, Officer. My husband is  _ dead,  _ the killer could still be out there, and you’re here  _ interrogating  _ a goddamn  _ widow _ .”

Gavin could tell that Nines was trying  _ really  _ hard not to roll his eyes, laying his arms on the desk in an open position before talking calmly. “Unfortunately, Miss Hawthorne, we have to look at all angles and go through all of the stories again. So, from the top, can you please run me through the events of the night of your husband’s murder?”

The woman huffed in annoyance, blowing a tuft of hair from her face. “I was walking my dog. And then I came home, found my husband dead. I went into shock, called the police, and a few days later, I get  _ detained  _ for a crime that  _ I  _ called in.”

“Miss Hawthorne, we’re trying to investigate your husband’s murder. I understand your frustration at this questioning, but being confrontational with me isn’t helping your cause.” Nines reminded her before going back to the story. Fowler hummed in assent, while Anderson grumbled like a little bitch.  _ (Fuck you, Hank.) _ Nines continued nonetheless. “What time did you leave for your walk, and what path did you take? Did you cross paths with anyone?”

“I left at around 7:50PM, and I just walked around the neighborhood for a bit. Let my dog piss and shit. I talked to Helen on the way there, but that’s about it.” Amelie leaned into her hand, putting on a bored expression. “Are you done now? In case you didn’t know, Officer, I’ve got a funeral to plan.”

Nines crossed his arms and leaned back, mimicking a bored appearance as he stared at Amelie harshly. “I don’t know if you know this, but were you aware of the drugs present in your husband’s body?”

“Didn’t the toxicology reports give us a negative?” Anderson groused. “The kid doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

As much as Gavin hated to agree with Anderson, he was kinda right about the toxicology reports not picking up any drugs in Hawthorne’s system. However...

“He’s looking to see if she trips up.” Tina suddenly stated, eyes widening. “The natural assumption would be that he was drugged if there was no signs of a struggle.”

“If he wasn’t, then that lessens the suspect list drastically, as it means whoever did this was someone close.” Chris’s eyes lit up with realization as well. “Damn, you’re a better teacher than I thought, Gav.”

Nines was a skilled interrogator. Gavin didn’t teach him that, so he must’ve picked it up from somewhere.  _ Clever.  _ Gavin thought to himself.

“Drugs? I didn’t know my husband was drugged. I just called in the cops as soon as I discovered the body.” The woman then sat a bit straighter in her chair, slamming her fists on the table as she looked angrily at her hands. “If he was drugged, could it be an attack on him by a drug lord or something? I don’t know what kind of company he keeps, but it must be that damn Leo kid - always smoking it up near him!”

“Maybe. If only his toxicology report didn’t come back clean. You know what this means, right?” Nines said with a single eyebrow raised, before he continued with a piercing look. “Your husband was entirely aware when he was murdered, which means that whoever did it, he trusted well enough to allow into the bedroom.”

“Called it.” Tina and Chris said at the same time, and while Gavin couldn’t see it because he was entirely focused on his partner, the sounds of Chris and Tina’s laughter behind him probably indicated that they fistbumped.

Amelie looked at him in shock before her eyebrows scrunched up, showing her  _ ‘confusion’.  _ “So you’re saying that… my husband was killed by someone he trusted? I mean, that doesn’t really narrow it down at all. My husband trusts way too easily, always making friends and I keep telling him that one day, he’ll get stabbed in the back, but he didn’t listen.”

She tsked as she shook her head, pursed his lips in what looked to be mock-thought, before she looked at Nines with a somewhat sure look. “It could’ve been that Frederick man. He worked with Jeremy at the office, but I heard that Frederick was quite upset at my husband after he got promoted.”

“Do you really think that Jeremy would allow Frederick into his bedroom?” Nines challenged. “Personally, I don’t let many people near my bedroom and I doubt many others would, least of all leave someone unattended in a house while sleeping.”

Nines then sat up and got closer to look Amelie straight in the eye. “A spouse, however? Fits all the criteria. Unless you know of anyone else who would qualify, you’re our prime suspect, Miss Hawthorne.”

Even at this distance, Gavin could see Amelie starting to sweat, her hands shaking, before a dark look overcame her. “S-Sometimes I see Jeremy coming late at night. There’s someone else’s perfume on his clothes, someone else’s lipstick on his neck.”

A few seconds of silence overcame them, Amelie refusing to elaborate before Nines tipped his head forward at her. The woman looked down, blinking repeatedly as if she was trying to prevent tears from falling — or trying to fake cry. “I… I tried confronting him with it, tried getting him to tell me, but he never caved so I just… pretended that I never saw it. But… could it be...?”

“Was it always your husband coming home from another’s house though? Did you ever return home yourself and find the same evidence?“ Nines pressed her, leaning in closer to meet her face to face. “Did you suspect him of being unfaithful in your own bed?”

“I mean, I never really found any evidence of it. Just a few hairs on the bed that could’ve been from when he worked and he didn’t bother changing out of his clothes, but it could’ve happened while I was away.” Her expression shifted from concentration to a mix between annoyance and nervousness. “Are you done now, or are you going to ask if I had sex with him recently? Because I don’t feel comfortable explaining that to you,  _ Officer _ .”

“So it was a possibility? You couldn’t be sure, despite being all but convinced that he was being unfaithful?” Nines persisted. Her posture stiffened and her fingers twitched. “Did you ever look at what colour the hairs on the bed were? Presumably you realised they weren’t your own - and transferral from clothes is highly unlikely unless your husband had a habit of going under the covers fully clothed?”

“Officer, I don’t know what game you’re trying to play here, but cut it out!” Amelie yelled as she got up from her seat, getting in Nines’s face. “No, I didn’t look at the hairs on the bed! I just threw them out whenever I saw them, and I don’t know about whatever my husband does in bed with other women!”

“And thus, we have a legitimate cause for suspecting you in the crime of your husband’s murder.” Nines smiled back sweetly. “You  _ knew  _ your husband wasn’t loyal, you’re entirely sure that he brought other women to  _ your  _ bed, and what greater insult is there to a spouse than to find out that you’re not the only one who’s slept with your husband in your own bed?”

“Are you  _ seriously  _ accusing me of killing my own husband?!” Amelie spat in Nines’s face, standing up with her ass at a certain angle. The fuck was she doing? 

“Is she tryna seduce him?” Tina furrowed her brows, as Chris crossed his arms. She looked at Gavin for a brief moment, before turning back to Nines. She sighed, shaking her head in mock-disappointment. “I will never understand straight people.”

Chris let out a snort, Fowler just looked at them, while Gavin frowned as Amelie continued to point at Nines. “That’s outrageous! I may have despised him for a bit, but not to the point of murder! Honestly Officer, I think you just want to keep me in this room for yourself.”

“That’s exactly what I am accusing you of.” Nines purred in triumph. Gavin pretended not to shudder as he imagined what else could cause Nines to make that noise again. Nines continued, the smugness in his tone evident. “There was no reason to believe that your husband was murdered while you were out on your walk, it could have happened immediately before. You could’ve killed him just before you went out just to give yourself an alibi.”

“You really think I wanted to kill my own husband, huh? Or is that just what you want me to say?  _ ‘Oh, yes Officer, I killed my own husband because I’m a jealous bitch!’ _ That’s not what happened, Officer!” She jabbed a finger into Nines’s chest, letting out a low growl and baring her teeth before she pointed it directly under Nines’s chin. “I may have  _ hated  _ him so much, but I didn’t want him  _ dead _ .”

“Really? It looks to me that it was exactly what happened.” Nines said triumphantly, continuing on to tell her how she fucked up some more before she reached over the small table, grabbed him by his neck and kissed him deeply. Gavin took in a sharp breath as his fists clenched. Only Tina and Chris seemed to notice this, and they both just put an arm around him. It comforted him a little bit.

Nines simply stood there, his cool facade completely broken apart by the kiss and seemingly stunned into silence before he finally pulled back and grabbed her by the wrists, pinning her down, letting out an authoritative snarl. “What. Do you think you’re doing?”

Amelie looked up at him lustfully, blinking with those long lashes as she purred seductively. “Isn’t this what you want, Officer?”

“If you don’t desist.” Nines glared at her. “I  _ will  _ be forced to detain you. And I promise,  _ it will not be a pleasant experience _ .”

As soon as her dumb facade didn’t seem to work, she snapped. “Fine! I fucking killed him! He was out again with that whore of his, and I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Nines looked to the one-way mirror, giving them a thumbs up before he quickly sped out of the room and out into the halls. Gavin immediately followed after him, ignoring whatever words Fowler, his friends, or  _ god forbid  _ Anderson were going to say. After a bit of searching, he found Nines in the DPD’s bathrooms, rinsing his mouth thoroughly.

“Fun fact, the water in Detroit is technically a safety issue and shouldn’t even be brought into your mouth.” Gavin said, for a lack of any other points of conversation.

Nines flipped him off, turning his head backwards to show a small smile on his face. “Fuck off. I’ve researched Detroit’s water system for a long while now, I know how the fucking filtration system works. Been drinking this shit and the only issues I have are perfection issues.”

That got a snort out of Gavin, which somehow made Nines’s smile look even brighter and wider. Gavin, without thinking, grabbed onto Nines’s hand and led them out towards the parking lot, despite Nines’s protests.

“It’s time to get the fuck out of work and go for coffee then a movie.” Gavin said as he playfully shoved Nines into the passenger seat of his car. “We’ve earned this, now come on.”

Nines only shook his head and laughed to himself. “Unbelievable.”

Gavin put the keys in the ignition, preparing himself to leave and maybe,  _ finally,  _ confess his dumb fucking feelings for his partner.


	7. Crashing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays, everyone :) 
> 
> oh, and **y'all've read the tags, yeah?** just checking

The drive to the cinema was one filled with jokes, banter, and stories about the dumbest shit they’ve done. It was lighthearted, and Gavin actually nearly forgot about what had happened with Amelie in the interrogation room a few minutes prior. Nines laughed as Gavin told the tale of how he still drank coffee with salt instead of sugar just to spite everyone.

“Alright, we’re here.” Gavin said as he parked right in front of the Octopunk Theater, a theater dedicated to producing and showing films by indie creators. Gavin had only been there once with Chris, but he’d been meaning to go back once he found a reason to get away from work.

Nines got out of the car and leaned on the roof of the car to meet Gavin’s face. “So, what’re we watching, Gav?”

“I dunno. You pick? I’m mostly into mystery films and detective shit but I love me a good horror.” Gavin didn’t react outwardly to the nickname, but inside he was  _ screaming _ . “Just don’t pick a shitty romcom though.”

The two of them walked into the theater, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the list of movies. Eventually, they decided on ‘Livescream’, something about a killer who targeted livestreamers? Honestly, Gavin didn’t know, he just wanted to see what all the hype was about. Nines had also bet that Gavin would scream at least once during the movie, and in true Gavin Reed fashion, he didn’t-  _ couldn’t  _ back down from a challenge.

“Hey, our partnerships been doing great so far, hasn’t it?” Nines said in front of him. The line was actually kind of long, but at least they got there at some point before most of the others.

“Yeah.” Gavin sighed as he fidgeted with the drawstrings of his jacket. “Shame it’s gonna end after we go back to the precinct.”

Nines gave him that stupid fucking smile, that dumb shy looking smile that made Gavin feel Emotions™, rubbing his arm idly. “Well, about that. Do you remember the day that Lieutenant Anderson snapped at me?”

“Yeah.” Gavin grimaced at the memory. “Yeah, I remember that pretty fuckin’ well.”

“Right. We had a conversation about what division you were in.” Nines let out a breathy laugh, looking Gavin directly in the eyes with a soft look on his face. “I’m gunning for the homicide division. I want to be like my new hero, Gavin fucking Reed. And if you’d allow it, I’d like to remain your partner?”

_ What the fuck.  _ Gavin thought as he just stared at Nines. Gavin had never had a partner who’d stuck with him for more than a week, and Nines just? Wanted to be his partner? Shit, this felt like a fucking marriage proposal to him. Gavin tried to get the words out of his head into the open, opening and closing his mouth but all he could think of was  _ ‘he likes you!’  _ over and over again.

Nines couldn’t see that though, and visibly deflated. “O-Of course, you don’t have to, it was probably a stupid idea anywa-”

Gavin hugged Nines as tightly as he could. He hugged the  _ fuck  _ out of Nines. If Tina said that he gave the best hugs then for fuck’s sake he was going to use it! Nines seemed just as surprised as he was for a moment, but after it finally sank in he hugged back enthusiastically. Gavin even lifted Nines off the ground slightly, causing him to laugh and yell to be put down.

“Of course, I’ll be your partner.” Gavin grinned at him. “We assholes gotta stick together after all, eh?”

Nines huffed a laugh, about to respond before they were ushered forward by the line behind them. Still, they continued to give each other dumb fucking looks, giggling at times like children who just did something and got away with it. 

Eventually, they got their tickets and concessions  _ (“Fuck off Nines, if I want a big bag of Skittles, I’ll get a big bag of Skittles!”),  _ and they got into their seats. The pre-show ads rolled, Gavin and Nines making snarky comments about each of them, before the lights dimmed and the show started playing. The opening sequence was pretty good, from what Gavin could tell. He didn’t really pay too much attention to the film, because Nines kind of jolted from his seat and grabbed his hand. 

He didn’t mention it when Nines eventually let go of his hand, but somehow, with a single squeeze of his hand, Nines kept his hand there. Whenever Nines gripped his hand too hard, he’d squeeze back as a sign of both reassurance and affection. A way of saying that he was there for Nines, that he’d always be there for him, no matter what, without using actual words.

Gavin’s gaze returned to the screen, where the main character had first contact  _ (or had they met more than once already?)  _ with the killer, occasionally looking at his hand intertwined with Nines’s and smiling as Nines squeezed his hand during tense moments. Gavin thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to get somewhere in his relationship with Nines.

He smiled as he continued to watch the movie, rubbing calming circles into the back of Nines’s hand.

* * *

After the movie, Nines had begun a long-winded essay about the images portrayed by the movie, the themes it presented, and whatever else he loved about Livescream, and while Gavin didn’t really get most of it, he nodded as if he understood anyway. They talked about what their favorite parts of the movie were as they drove to a coffee shop somewhere in downtown Detroit which Nines found out via word of mouth, which supposedly had the best coffee beans in the entirety of Detroit.

When they got there, they continued talking about whatever tickled their fancies. Gavin brought up which of them would win in a fight against a bear and how they’d beat it, which funnily enough Nines thought was about the gay kind of bears, not the animal kind of bears. If Nines made an effort to keep the family talk out of their conversation, Gavin didn’t mention it, he just talked about how he tried to learn knife tricks after seeing a circus performer do it online once and got off with only a few scars.

“So yeah, I was really into doing tricks to impress people.” Gavin said as he balanced the knife that came with his pancakes on his nose. “It’s a really awesome party trick, but I don’t really do ‘em anymore ‘cause of what happened the last time I did this. That, and Tina’s probably gonna have a heart attack.”

“What happened last time?” Nines asked, eyeing both Gavin himself and the knife with an amused expression.

Gavin snorted as the knife fell off his nose, catching it easily with a single swipe of his hand. “Okay, so I was a little bit too cocky, and I got a shit ton of cuts on my arms from the five knives I kept on there. Needless to say, Fowler himself has banned me from ever using knives in the precinct.”

Nines laughed at that, shaking his head. “I’d love to see you try to do that in the precinct before Fowler catches you.”

“Is that a challenge?” Gavin gave him a cocky grin, to which Nines only huffed out a breath of air.

“A challenge would be doing it on top of your desk for everyone to see without being caught.”

Whatever Gavin was going to say was lost as they heard a shot, followed by a scream coming from somewhere in the alley behind them. Wordlessly, the two of them jumped out of their seats and rushed towards the source of the noise. They went into an alley right beside the shop, spotting a blonde haired woman with a little girl in her arms on the ground, while two men ran from them with what looked like the woman’s purse and the girl’s backpack.

“DPD, hands up!” Nines yelled at them, causing them to pause momentarily before they ran quicker.

Gavin muttered a curse as he brought out his badge, running towards the woman and what he presumed was her kid on the ground. “Are you alright?”

“I- I got shot, right in the leg.” The woman responded as calmly as she could for a woman who just got shot, pointing to her leg which had a bullet hole in it. The child in her arms sobbed incessantly, sniffling into the woman’s jacket. Gavin took off the little girl’s scarf with permission from both her and the woman she was clinging to, using it as an improvised tourniquet while Nines ran past them in pursuit of the men, glancing back only once yelling that he’s got this before running faster than Gavin would’ve thought was possible for him.

“This is Detective Reed on 317 Anchester Road.” Gavin said into his comms as he secured the tourniquet. “We’ve got a 1200 and a 1300, bring in an ambulance and some cop cars too.”

Gavin got an affirmative response and as soon as the woman was well aware that help was on the way and she just needed to sit still, Gavin looked for where Nines was. Luckily, some passersby were around, agreeing to keep an eye on the woman and help if she didn’t look too good, so he sprinted into the direction where Nines went.

The wind blew harshly against his face as he ran towards the two assailants, trying to cut them off before they got too far away. The streets were pretty barren for mid-afternoon Detroit, but Gavin paid it no mind, focusing on trying to catch the criminals. 

He shot a few warning shots, which at least got them to stop running in that direction and allowed for Nines to catch up. He clocked one of them in the head with his baton, sending him to the ground before he sprinted towards the other one. The other man used his gun to fire a few shots at Nines, before he turned to Gavin and fired nearly point blank, managing to graze his cheek but thankfully aside from the ringing in his ears, nothing else.

Gavin sent the criminal to the ground with a quick pistol whip. He cuffed the one nearest to him while Nines cuffed the other one, and after that thrill of a chase, Gavin felt like he just wanted to crash at home, take a twenty-four hour nap and call it a day.

“We did it.” Gavin said as he walked towards Nines, who stepped back onto the road, wiping sweat from his forehead. Gavin smiled dopily at him. “Can’t believe you could go faster than you did at the airsoft game.”

“Well, I do have long legs.” Nines chuckled, before frowning as he noticed the graze on Gavin’s cheek. “Are you alright?”

“What? Sorry, my ears are ringing.” Gavin muttered as he rubbed his ears. For a split-second, he saw Nines’s concern shift into fear and panic, but he didn’t know what that was about. “Fucking hell, at least my hearing’s coming ba-”

Suddenly, he was pushed onto his back by Nines, and the rest of the moment was a blur. His head spun as he hit the hard concrete, he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching, becoming louder and louder, and then he saw the emotion in Nines’s eyes change from panic, to relief, to acceptance, and for a moment, Gavin didn’t know why, until it hit him.

And then-  _ crash! _

_ Bang! _

_ “Nines!” _

Gavin yelled as he watched a car crash straight into Nines, not even stopping as it flung him across the street. Nines fell to the ground with a resounding  _ ‘thud!’  _ as Gavin scrambled over to his side, cradling him in his arms as tears threatened to fall down his face. Nines’s skin was bruised, blood trickled down his face as his eyes stared directly through Gavin, as if he wasn’t even there.

_ No no no no no no no. You can’t die, you can’t.  _ Gavin’s thoughts spurred on rampantly, as Nines blinked wearily, a soft smile on his face. 

“Safe?” Nines asked him, the weakness in his voice evident as his breathing struggled to steady itself.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m safe, thanks to you.” Gavin replied in the gentlest voice he could muster. “Just- Just stay calm, yeah? Help is on the way, you don’t gotta worry.”

Gavin waited for a response, anything, even just a subtle nod of his head, but nothing happened. 

“Nines?! Nines! Come on, don’t do this to me!” Gavin pleaded, but Nines didn’t respond, his eyes just stared dead ahead, his breathing labored and slowing too quickly. “C-Come on, you can’t die yet!”

The ringing noises faded as the sound of sirens reached Gavins ears, his head turning towards the sound. He picked up Nines as gently as he could before rushing towards the ambulance, fueled by adrenaline as tears streaked down his face for all the others to see. But he didn’t care, no. He just needed to make sure Nines was alright. 

“Don’t worry, Nines. We’re gonna save you.” Gavin told himself more than he told Nines. At this point, he didn’t even know if Nines could still hear him, but he refused to give up hope.

Multiple people who Gavin recognized, either from the station or just from the mugging that happened a few minutes ago, turned their eyes to look at him as he yelled out for the ambulance to get Nines in. The paramedics immediately reopened the back and adjusted the woman into the side bench, who looked on in confusion and then immediate dread. Her kid took one look at Nines and bawled her eyes out, clinging to her mother for comfort that she didn’t know how to give.

Gavin went into the ambulance without thinking, clambering in right next to the woman, who put her arm around him in a consoling manner. Gavin leaned into her touch, nodding silently as she offered comforting words, nearly forgetting that she just got shot earlier. He reached his hand out to grab Nines’s limp one, rubbing gentle circles into the back of it.

_ ‘Please be okay.’ _


	8. The Hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya, just a quick little update for you guys, the art isn't here yet, but it will eventually be here in the future, so uh. if there happen to be any more updates to this fic past the actual ending of this fic, you guys'll know that it's just the art, which you should still check out because my artist is hella awesome so,,, yeah!!

It was kind of a heat of the moment situation, really. He heard the tires screeching, he saw the car rushing towards them from his peripheral vision, and he knew that either one of them took the hit, or both of them did. So really, it wasn’t a hard decision at all for Nines to push Gavin out of the way.

Nines thought back to all the memories he had of Gavin. He thought about how they stayed up trying to solve cold cases late into the night, how they went to different coffee shops after doing something because that just became their thing, how Gavin smiled at him when he told him that he wanted to be his partner. It flashed through his mind in a split-second, but to him it all played in slow motion. 

He could still hear the words that Gavin said, but he didn’t register any of it. His face turned into fear that Gavin wouldn’t get out, relief that he was safe, and acceptance that he might not live to see Gavin anymore.

Gavin Reed was a very contradictory man. He was bold, brash, all in-your-face. Yet he was also thoughtful, caring, gentle. He didn’t like to show others the softer side of him, always playing the part of the asshole to get away from those who’d just stick around for the good parts of him, but he let Nines in. He slowly but surely, opened his heart up to Nines, letting him get to know the man behind all the insults and anger.

Gavin Reed was a special case - maybe even the most important person in Nines’ life. He was kind and reassuring despite his generally cold and rude behavior. He was his partner. He was his best friend. He was that force in Nines’s life that he couldn’t live without. 

For Nines, there was never any other choice. For Nines, Gavin was the best thing that had happened to him. He pushed Gavin out of the way, and then-

…

And then-

And then… then what?

  
  
  
  
  


Nines woke up abruptly, like he had just fallen asleep and woken up to the sun shining through his window. But it wasn’t like that. The sun wasn’t out, because it was night. He knew that because he was outside. He felt himself being moved, as if he were lying down on a conveyor belt, but he was tied to it because he couldn’t move anything. But he knew he wasn’t tied down, he didn’t feel any restraints. He just… didn’t want to move, he guessed.

He listened to get a clue of where he was, but he couldn’t really glean too much from the night ambience of Detroit as well as the people moving around. He stared at the stars, or… whatever they were  _ (could you see the stars in Detroit? He couldn’t quite remember) _ , noticing how pretty they were. He never really took the chance to admire the stars before, and it’s like… it’s like he’s seeing them for the first time.

All too soon, he’s moved away from the stars, and he’s staring at the ceiling of some building. He tried to tilt his head back, to get a better view of the stars, but he kept moving further and further into the building. He sighed as he closed his eyes, and soon enough, he fell asleep again.

* * *

The next time Nines woke up, he was with Gavin. 

He was… in a hospital, maybe? He felt that he was on a bed, somehow not feeling out of place here. He saw a window to his right, where Gavin sat beneath it, the sun bathing him in pretty golds and oranges. He looked up at Gavin, who held his head in his hands. He looked sad. Nines didn’t want Gavin to be sad. He reached out to Gavin, finding it kind of hard to lift his arm up. He tried again, but only ended up tapping the railing on the side of his bed.

Gavin’s head perked up at the small sound, before he grinned with happiness mixed with sadness. Melancholic. “Hey, Nines.”

Nines tried to respond, but he couldn’t. He physically couldn’t. He tried again, only letting out a breathy noise. He wanted to be upset about it, but he couldn’t really find it in him, because Gavin was there. Gavin moved his chair closer to him so that he was right beside the bed. “Did ya miss me?”

Nines nodded as enthusiastically as he could, which wasn’t really a lot, but Gavin seemed really happy. Gavin chuckled, looking like he was trying to stop tears from falling despite the lopsided grin he proudly wore. “Yeah? I missed ya too, bud.”

Gavin held out his hand beside Nines’s own, offering a soft smile. Nines cautiously slipped his hand into Gavin’s, humming contentedly as Gavin rubbed reassuring circles on the back of his hand. He liked Gavin. He knew that much. He didn’t really remember too much of what they did, but he remembered Gavin’s smiles, Gavin’s laugh, Gavin’s quips. He remembered the Gavin that he slowly began to fall in love with.

He just really wished that he wouldn’t be sad anymore.

* * *

Several days passed. Nines had met a couple doctors, though he couldn’t really remember their names too well. He’d been allowed to be put on the wheelchair and roam their floor by one of the head doctors, as long as he was accompanied by someone. That someone happened to be Gavin, who came in nearly everyday. That lightened his spirits a bit. He wasn’t… he wasn’t doing too great, if you asked him, but he could manage to let the days pass by. 

He sat in his wheelchair facing the window, just so that he could see what Detroit was up to while he was stuck in there. He knew that the chances of him being back on the field again were incredibly low. Even if he didn’t have to get the two brain surgeries, his walking’s pretty fucked, he didn’t even know if he’d be able to walk again.

Nines shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts of work. He was told to focus on his recovery so that he could return to work, and Gavin always brought his cases with him to the hospital so that Nines wasn’t too bored. It’s actually better than just scrolling through social media and seeing messages from people he didn’t really bother to get to know, telling him to get better soon.

While his hand coordination was extremely off, he could still kinda type, so he just made notes on his phone and sent them to Gavin. He cringed at the typos, but he really couldn’t be bothered to go back and fix them, and Gavin never seemed to mind. In fact, he worked better in the hospital with Nines, judging by what Tina said when she came here once. 

Thoughts aside, there’s been something that’s been bothering him ever since he woke up. Where the fuck was Connor? Nines remembered listing him as his emergency contact in case he got hurt in the line of duty, but he hadn’t seen a single sign of his brother. In fact, the only ones he noticed visiting him were Gavin, Chris, Tina, and on one occasion, Captain Fowler.

“Gavin.” Nines rasped out. He could kinda talk? His voice was still soft and weak from, what he was told,  _ weeks  _ of not talking due to being in a coma for five weeks, apparently. Either way, talking didn’t come easy to him, but he managed to convey whatever he wanted just fine. At least, he did when it was Gavin.

Speaking of Gavin, he turned up from his phone and gave his full attention to Nines. “Yeah? You need anythin’, babe?”

That… was another thing. Gavin had, at some point in between his accident and him waking up, started calling him ‘babe’. And while Nines wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information, he simply accepted it with no complaint. Either way, Nines wanted to know something. “C-Connor?”

“Uh.” Gavin’s brows furrowed slightly as he leaned in closer from where he was standing behind the wheelchair. “You asking if he’s come by here?”

Nines nodded as Gavin adjusted their positions so they faced each other. He didn’t really know why Gavin did that, as he could always just turn around to face Gavin, but he guessed that Gavin wanted them to see each other face to face? Nines didn’t really know. He’d already established that Gavin was a special case anyway. 

Gavin huffed as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “He’s been around a few times after I punched him. I dunno if he’s ever been here when you woke up, but he just doesn’t come as often as he should.”

Oh. That sucked. That kinda proved his thoughts about Connor only tolerating him because they were supposed to be brothers. “Punched him?”

Gavin let out a snort, baring one of the rare grins he reserved to Chris, Tina, and Nines.  _ His closest friends.  _ Nines realized, and his heart softened at that realization. Gavin didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t say anything about it. “Yeah. I punched him for not answering his phone when he was called as your emergency contact. Searched the DPD database to find out where the fucker lived and waited for him to come home so I could punch him personally.”

That at least got a huff out of Nines, and Gavin grinned at him as if he held up the sun, the moon, and the stars. Ha. He could barely even hold his phone, much less the moon. Nines rolled his eyes, asking for his phone. Gavin gave it to him wordlessly, a mix of both regret and warmth on his face as he stared at Nines. Before Nines could dig into it too much, Gavin patted his shoulder and turned to his phone, a neutral expression on his face.

Nines ignored the feelings that surged up due to whatever he saw on Gavin’s face and unlocked his phone. He was incredibly lucky that it managed to survive with only a few cracks, which kinda annoyed him but at least it wasn’t dead. He scrolled up to Connor’s contact, the last message still from three weeks ago.

**TheConMan™ [18:44]:** im sorry

_ If you were sorry, why don’t you visit me more often?  _ Nines thought bitterly as he composed a poorly written text, because fuck Connor. Wouldn’t even capitalize or use apostrophes when Nines was in the hospital after getting hit by a truck.

...okay, Nines had to admit, that was incredibly petty of him, but sue him, he got hit by a fucking truck, his brother hadn’t visited him while he was awake, and there’s this weird thing between him and Gavin that Nines so desperately wants to be love, as in  _ love  _ love, but maybe Gavin’s just being a really good friend and also felt guilty that Nines even got hit in the first place-

God. This was why he needed an older brother in the first place.

**iPhone9s [13:24]:** Why havne#t you vis8ted me yet   
**iPhone9s [13:24]:** I ve b3en havtmd a gay 0anix abt my partner this wh9le time   
**iPhone9s [13:24]:** Bitch

Well, at least he spelled ‘bitch’ right the first time. He sighed as he tapped for Gavin to bring him back to the bed. One good thing that this disaster gave him was that now Gavin had to lift him up in his arms and onto the bed. Was this what being royalty felt like? Probably not. Nines smiled at Gavin as he placed him down on the bed gently.

“Alright, babe.” Gavin patted his cheek affectionately, which Nines leaned into as much as he could. “You wanna watch TV again?”

Nines brought a thumb up and Gavin clicked the remote on. The first thing that Nines saw before Gavin immediately changed the channel was an advert for some sort of Christmas event. He almost forgot that it was about to be Christmas soon, and he wasn’t going to be out of here for some time. 

He sighed and patted the side of the bed, urging Gavin to at least sit down beside him. Gavin actually laid in bed with him, lifting Nines’s neck up slightly so he could slot his arm in. Nines laid back on Gavin’s arm, reaching up to grab his hand. Gavin rubbed gentle circles into his hand, up until he had to leave because of visiting hours being over. 

Because of course he had to leave. Everyone left him at some point. Nines just wished Gavin would stay. Just a little while longer. He sighed as he watched senseless ads on the TV, reminding him yet again that he’d most likely end up spending Christmas in the hospital.

Alone. Again.

~~_ (He did not cry. Even if he did, who was there to have seen him?) _ ~~

Even as Nines fell asleep that night, he hadn’t received a response from Connor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact! the change of wording in this chapter from nines being hit by a car to being hit by a truck is intentional! it's based on my own experience when i thought i got hit by a truck but it was actually a car, and i told some people on discord that i got hit by a truck to explain my sudden absence lmao


	9. Merry Fucking Christmas, Indeed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year, everyone!! also, just a heads up, the next chapter's a christmas chapter but like,,, christmas was a few days ago whoops

Gavin got back to the precinct after a quick visit to see Nines. Sure, that meant him being later than usual because he actually liked being there with Nines, but Fowler didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Fowler seemed to be encouraging Gavin to just stay with him at the hospital instead of being there as soon as the hospital let him, heading to the precinct, then back to the hospital, leaving only when the no visitors past 8PM rule took place.

Fowler nodded at him as he passed him, a look of concern beneath his strictly professional work face, which was kinda nice. It was better than the looks of pity and wishes of condolences from the people who didn’t bother to visit Nines.

Seriously, what was up with that? 

He knew that Nines wasn’t the most social person out there, but there were people he talked to on occasion. Hell, he knew that Nines and Person liked to talk shit amicably about their partners to one another because Gavin walked in on them doing just that in the breakroom. Nines didn’t seem bothered by his partner finding out, in fact, he talked shit even louder when he knew that Gavin was nearby. Gavin used to roll his eyes at him and flip him off, just to hear his loud and boisterous laugh, so seemingly out of character for Mr. Stick-Up-His-Ass yet just so…  _ him. _

Gavin shook his head, choosing to head to the breakroom for some coffee, spotting Chris at one of the tables, presumably speaking to his wife. As Gavin waited for his coffee, Chris muttered his ‘goodbye’s and ‘I love you’s, which. Sure, Gavin wanted to say that to Nines right about now, but Nines was in the hospital and they weren’t dating so… 

He bumped his head on the coffee machine, the thrum of it against his forehead being the only thing that grounded him right now. Why the fuck did he have to call Nines babe? Now he probably thought that Gavin was a weirdo or something coming on to him while he was unconscious. Gavin grimaced as he took a sip from his coffee, moving over to join Chris.

“Hey.” Chris greeted him with a raise of his own cup. “How’s Nines been doing?”

“Pretty good. He’s typing a bit faster now, I think. Talks a bit more too, usually to shit on me but hey. Least he’s talking.” Gavin smiled into his cup. Nines really did seem like he was getting better, he could see it in the way he kept trying. Trying to talk more, trying to type better, trying to get better. Gavin could actually see himself in the prick - never wanting to stay idle, always bitching about how he’ll get better. It was… “He’s getting better.”

Chris laughed softly, grinning at Gavin with a playful glint in his eyes. He shook his head, still bearing that mischievous grin. “If there’s one thing that both of you have in common, it’s the persistence to shit on each other.”

“Yeah. Good to know that his spirit’s still holdin’ strong.” Gavin snorted. “Sucks that no one else really visits him. I’ve pestered the receptionist so many times that he just tells me that no one’s come by yet as soon as he spots me.”

Chris’s face darkened a bit and he leaned over to Gavin, his voice lowering to a whisper. “All the office gossip’s about how they’re excited for the booze at his welcome back party. It’s as if no one actually cares about him.”

Gavin did  _ not _ like that. His face twisted into a frown, mirroring Chris who just nodded grimly. Gavin let out a frustrated huff. “And they say  _ I’m  _ the asshole.”

“Yeah. At least we know you care about us genuinely.” Chris smiled somberly, sighing as he got up from his table. He patted Gavin’s back, offering him one last smile before he went off somewhere else in the precinct.

Gavin fumed silently all by himself in the breakroom and glared at his coffee cup, as if it was the one that only liked Nines for whenever it fucking benifitted them. Anderson sauntered over to him, reeking of booze and looking just as mad as Gavin was, but probably for different reasons. Anderson took one look at him and huffed, crossing his arms. “The fuck’s up with you? You look like shit.”

“Look in a mirror, Anderson. You’re lookin’ way worse than I do.” Gavin retorted, sipping his coffee with as much disrespect as he could muster  _ (which wasn’t much, but oh well) _ . 

Besides, he knew that the only reason Anderson said that was because the bags under his eyes looked more pronounced than usual. He’d blame it on his insomnia, but he knew it was because he spent most of his time at both the precinct and the hospital, keeping an eye on Nines and making sure he wasn’t too bored in there. Oh god, was he just reminding him that he couldn’t work for a long while?

Either way, his short little revelation was interrupted by Anderson banging his fist on the table, snarling at him for… some reason. Honestly, he expected to be yelled at for whatever pissed Anderson off, just not  _ this  _ early. Especially since Anderson usually didn’t come by until after noon.

Anderson walked around the table towards Gavin, pointing an accusatory finger at him. Gavin only raised an eyebrow, hearing something about how his generation lost all respect for the previous generations, something else about how he thought he was better than him just because he got to work earlier and had a higher case completion rate than pretty much everyone else, blah blah blah.

“Yeah yeah. I gotta go do my job, so I’m leaving. Plus, it’s startin’ to stink of booze in here.” Gavin rolled his eyes as he walked out of the breakroom, making an exaggerated motion of wafting away the air in front of his nose before he shoulder checked Anderson on his way out. 

Anderson growled at him, and Gavin thought that would’ve been the end of their interaction, but no. Anderson yelled at the top of his lungs, despite the fact that Gavin was only a few feet away. "At least I didn't get my partner fucking run over!"

Gavin froze midstep, and suddenly everyone went quiet. The tapping of keyboards, the animated chatter, everything stopped. Or maybe Gavin couldn’t hear it anymore because of the storm of memories, emotions, and possible pasts and futures that surged his mind, wreaking havoc in his brain and causing more chaos than he could process.

He turned to face Anderson, a blank expression on his face as he watched Anderson laugh at him. At what a failure he was. At how he couldn’t even save the one person he actually fucking loved. Gavin choked back a sob, he was pretty sure that there were tears that streaked down his face, but he didn’t wipe them off. He just continued to stare at Anderson’s  _ really  _ punchable face.

Gavin Reed was a simple man. He was rude to pretty much everyone, and a genuine asshole to those who deserved it. He followed orders, he did his job, he did it right.

Gavin Reed was an angry man. He tried, he  _ really fucking tried,  _ tried so damn hard not to let Anderson's words get to him. Weeks of Tina and Chris reassuring him that it wasn't his fault, telling him that Nines didn't blame him — and neither did they — suddenly felt like they weren't enough. Like  _ he  _ wasn't enough.

Wasn't quick enough to pull Nines with him. Wasn't alert enough to have seen it coming. Wasn't sorry enough to warrant Nines's forgiveness.

Gavin Reed was a simple man, an angry man, and he wasn't calm enough to stop himself from beating Hank Anderson into the ground.

Anderson stumbled to the floor, and this time, Gavin wasn't holding back. He only held back before because he was worried that Anderson's old man bones would crack and he'd get laid off  _ (good riddance),  _ but there was something in his gut that told him that he didn't fucking deserve to be treated like this. 

As if the whispers of the rest of the department  — saying that he probably planned it, as if he didn't fucking care about Nines, as if he didn't cry his heart out while the doctors told him that he had a very low chance of survival, the whispers of those who didn't know, didn't fucking care  — weren't torturous enough for him.

Gavin stared at the bloodied mug of his old hero's face, contorted in a low moan from the blow he had suffered. It was… somewhat cathartic, but still, he felt a little disappointed. He really expected Anderson to at least fight back, but he guessed that the old fuck had a little too much to drink. He wondered when Fowler would call him into his office. Surely the other people who saw would’ve told hi-

“Reed, my office, now!”

_ There  _ it was. Gavin sighed as he walked towards Fowler’s office, completely unscathed this time, and while he was thankful for this, it didn’t feel too good. Sure, he beat up the one person he hated most, but he didn’t even fight back, so it was kinda like beating up a poor, defenseless old man. Which in hindsight, it probably was. 

Well, fuck.

Gavin entered the office, having the sudden urge to put up a fight. He squished that urge down as he took a seat, gazing up at Fowler’s face to gauge his reaction. He saw a multitude of emotions flash in his Captain’s eyes, ranging from shock, irritation, and just disappointment. Disappointment, disappointment, disappointment. 

Accepting whatever punishment he’d receive, Gavin sighed and closed his eyes, speaking quietly, as if anything louder than that would cause his world to collapse. “Am I fired, sir?”

Fowler only sighed, running a hand across his face. “No. You’re just. Suspended. For the next few weeks. Take the time to do whatever it is you need to do. You can take the cases you’ve already got with you, but you are to forward your findings to either Collins or to me directly.”

Gavin simply nodded, getting up and shoving his hands in his pockets. As he turned to leave, Fowler cleared his throat and called his name, causing him to look back. He stared at Fowler with furrowed brows, spotting some form of concern in his eyes.

“Don’t leave him alone this Christmas.”

With a steady nod of his head and a wave of his hand, Fowler dismissed him. Gavin looked on in silence, before getting out of Fowler’s office. Was that…? He shook his head, smiling to himself privately as he walked out to his desk, gathering the remaining files.

He gathered all his things in his bag, putting it on before heading off to see where Chris and Tina were. After a bit of searching, he found them just getting out of a patrol car, talking about what they were going to report to Fowler. Gavin walked right up to them, and upon seeing the messenger bag around his shoulder their brows furrowed.

“What did you do.” Tina immediately asked, her arms crossed. “It’s too early to have the bag on, so I repeat,  _ what  _ did you do?”

“Good to see you too, dickwad.” Gavin snorted half-heartedly, shaking his head. “Just punched Anderson again, feelin’  _ great.  _ Oh, and I got suspended for it too, so.”

Chris and Tina both sighed. Tina glared at him, but her gaze softened upon seeing his face. She sighed again, putting an arm on his shoulder. “Alright. What do you want? Want us to bully Fowler into getting you back in?”

“Just the knowledge that you guys’ll be joining Nines and I’s stupid lonely Christmas party.”

Both Tina and Chris winced, rubbing their arms. Chris was the one who spoke this time, his excited voice from talking about what they found replaced by something soft and quiet. “Gav, we’ve got families now. We can’t just…”

“Yeah. I figured.” Gavin sighed and rubbed the scar on his nose. He gave them a tired smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, trying to hide the disappointment in his eyes. Why was he even disappointed? He knew that they had people to spend the holidays with. He knew that they’d rather not disrupt the traditions they’ve started. It still hurt though. “Thanks for trying though.”

Chris gave him a sad smile while Tina averted her gaze. Tina then looked up at him, without that false bravado from earlier. “I still have the stuff from his welcome to the team party. If you want, I could…”

“That’d be great. Thanks Tee.” Gavin smiled a bit more genuinely this time at both of them. “Guess I better head off.”

Silence settled between the three of them, standing in the middle of the parking lot for quite a long period of time. The streets were still buzzing with activity, the three of them the only things that were still. Gavin raised his arms up, and without a single word exchanged between them, Tina and Chris walked into his arms, forming a threeway group hug.

Gavin was the one who broke away first, a melancholic smile on his lips as he walked back a few paces. “See ya ‘round.”

And with that, his two friends walked back into the precinct, shooting him glances until they disappeared through the doors. Gavin clutched his hand to his heart, before walking off to his car. He drowned the worrying thoughts in shitty Christmas tunes as he sighed. As he drove by, he saw a multitude of bright Christmas lights adorning a large sign with a picture of a family, laughing and smiling together.  _ ‘Christmas is best spent with family,’  _ said the sign.

Gavin snorted, deciding that now was a good time to have a cigarette. He repeated the phrase in his mind, smoke filling his lungs as he drove past the loud banter of families enjoying their day. He thought about Nines, stuck in his hospital room, doing god knows what on his phone until the doctors came in again and made him do exercises and tests or whatever.

_ Merry fucking Christmas, indeed.  _


	10. Hospitalized For The Holidays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obligatory christmas chapter a few months late hell yeah :D

A few days had passed since Gavin’s suspension, and he’d mostly been spending it at Nines’s room. It wasn’t like he had anything to do at home anyway, and he didn’t like the thought of Nines spending more days all alone, so it wasn’t really that hard of a decision. He’d already told him about the suspension, and while Nines was incredibly displeased, he at least appreciated the extra time with Gavin, but maybe that was just because he was lonely and he’d take the company of literally anyone just so that he wouldn’t feel alone. Which, valid, but still.

He stared at the inconspicuous-looking bag filled with what presents he’d gathered for Nines, before he looked at his gift for Nines and smiled for real this time. What would Nines think of it? He’d probably have it tossed out or something, but whatever. It’s the thought that counted, right? 

_God._ Gavin groaned as he collapsed on the bed. Why the fuck was he so nervous? All he was doing was visiting the guy who was supposed to be his partner before… Gavin blinked away the tears that started to form in his eyes.

_Focus._ Gavin snapped at himself mentally, hitting himself with his hand for good measure. Right. The Christmas ‘‘‘party’’’ was tomorrow. Jesus. He thought through everything that was going to happen, being careful about anything that could go wrong. And then his brain decided to helpfully supply that this entire thing could go wrong, so he growled at himself and tried to go to sleep.

Before he knew it, it was morning, and Gavin didn’t even know if he even fell asleep, much less if he had woken up. Nonetheless, he got ready, taking the bag and his gift for Nines before he headed out the door and got in his car. He put on some Christmas tunes, trying to psyche himself up for the inevitable shitshow that was going to be Nines’s first Christmas in the hospital.

_(Gavin_ wanted _to hope it would be his last, but he knew what happened when he got his hopes up.)_

He went into the Henry Ford Hospital, greeting the receptionist who, as expected, told him the number of visitors that Nines got: none. He smiled sadly at him, and went into the elevator, eyeing the number as he tried to calm his nerves. He shouldn’t be nervous. He shouldn’t even be this concerned about whether or not Nines would like his big dumb gift that was probably too big and dumb for Nines. Fuck, maybe he should’ve just-

The elevator dinged, and noticing that he was on Nines’s floor, Gavin walked out of the elevator. Upon reaching the door to Nines’s room, he sighed for a moment, taking a deep breath before knocking and opening the door. He put on a tired grin as he saw Nines’s surprised face, his eyes darting from Gavin’s face to the bag that he was holding, to the large gift in his arms. 

“Hey.” Gavin said as he walked towards Nines’s bed, placing the five-foot-tall cat plush beside him. “Merry Christmas, dipshit.”

“Why. Here?” Nines asked, his brows slightly furrowed as he held the cat plush like a lifeline.

“Because it’s Christmas?” Gavin snorted as he put a miniature Christmas tree on the desk beside Nines. “I brought gifts from Tina, Chris, and Fowler, if you could believe that.”

“Here.” Nines restated, his voice a little more concerned. “Family?”

Gavin let out a bittersweet laugh as he brought a chair up next to Nines, who asked to be put in more of a sitting position. Gavin let the silence settle again, hoping Nines would get the hint, but either Nines wanted him to say it or he really didn’t want to believe it. He sighed as he ran his hands through his hair. “Nope. Just me. Mom and dad fucked off somewhere, I don’t even know where the hell my brother is. Usually came to either Chris or Tina’s Christmases because they didn’t want me to feel lonely.”

Nines held his hand out for Gavin to take and rubbed gentle circles into the back of his hand as soon as he could. His movements were slow, not deliberately, but Gavin could tell that he was trying his best to reciprocate the gesture he used to give him. Nines looked up at him, a somber smile on his face. “Same. Just Connor. Not here. Anymore.”

“Yeah.” Gavin smiled back, echoing the sentiment and just closing his eyes, pushing his chair closer to Nines. “God. Look at us. Two assholes spending Christmas in a hospital room.”

“Romantic.” Nines replied with that teasing voice that Gavin was happy to hear coming back. Then he fucking winked at him, and Gavin swore that there was some form of seriousness when he continued. “Kiss?”

_If only you knew._ Gavin laughed as he half-heartedly batted at Nines’s chest, pushing him back into the bed. “I have standards, asshole. At least take me to dinner first.”

Nines huffed his version of a laugh and made grabby hands at Gavin, telling him to get his ass in that tiny hospital bed which couldn’t fit both of them comfortably, but Gavin was never a quitter. Gavin rolled his eyes as he got in, squishing in between Nines, his five-foot-tall cat friend, and the edge of the bed.

“Alright, alright. I’m here.” Gavin muttered as he let his arm slot in between the back of Nines’s neck and the bed, letting the other man rest his head on it. Nines smiled at him, and from this distance, Gavin thought that Nines was beautiful enough to kiss. Gavin shook his head as if that would dispel the thoughts plaguing his mind before he looked back at Nines. “What now?”

Nines sat in silence for a moment, beginning words then cutting them off abruptly, before he sighed and just grabbed one of Gavin’s hands, holding it to his heart and pressing his forehead against Gavin’s, and he sighed in _content_. As if just being there for each other, in that very moment, was enough for him.

Gavin let out a faint chuckle as he felt Nines’s hand trying to bring him closer _(most likely to prevent him from falling, but he could dream),_ smiling softly at Nines as he closed his eyes. “Guess we both needed that, huh?”

Nines didn’t respond verbally, he just tried to pull Gavin closer, to which Gavin happily obliged. And as they were? Just holding each other close, as if afraid to lose the other, the feeling of warm breath against cold skin, their touch being the only thing that was comfortable for the both of them? Gavin was content.

“Hey.” Gavin muttered silently as Nines opened a single eye just to look at him. “Wanna see the rest of your presents?”

Nines gave a small nod of his head as Gavin reached for his bag, clocking a dick-shaped balloon and huffing a laugh as he picked it up. Gavin snorted too, handing him a slim, little book with the words _‘Memories’_ written on the front in a curled font. “Those are from Tina. Really insisted on getting the dick balloon for ya.”

Upon receiving the book, Nines glanced at it curiously, tilting it in his hands before opening it. Gavin hadn’t actually seen the contents of the photo book, but it looked just as Tina said it would. Nostalgic, for some reason, and it put a smile on his face. He pointed to one photo in particular, the one where Gavin and Nines flipped off the camera with _‘baby’s first rival’_ written below it in Tina’s handwriting. “I still remember that day. I thought that you might actually have a stick in your ass.”

Nines huffed a laugh, pausing for a few moments and just admiring the pictures. A few moments were spent just leafing through the pages, with a bit of commentary from Gavin which always managed to get either a snort or a smile out of Nines. “Tina. Good with. Photos.”

“Yeah. She is.” Gavin smiled as Nines flipped the page and pointed to another picture, this one being the day Gavin, Chris, and Tina somehow got Nines _‘I don’t drink alcohol’_ Stern to a bar, and while he did end up being the designated driver, all four of them looked happy. Gavin shook his head as he grabbed the next thing out of the bag. “Alright, so we got Chris’s gift next. Weighted blanket and the promise of cookies, so hell yeah.”

Gavin pulled out a weighted blanket and a handwritten note, entailing the story of how Chris was gonna ask his wife to bake cookies for him, then his wife just deadass asked ‘are you dumb?’ and reminded him of how Nines couldn’t actually eat _(although he_ did _promise to give him some when he could actually eat, which was hella nice of him in Gavin’s opinion)_. From the looks of it, Nines appreciated the sentiment, shaking his head fondly as Gavin carefully placed the blanket over him.

“Good?” Gavin asked. Nines gave him a nod, tilting his head before asking for whatever Fowler gave. Gavin reached into the bag, only finding a small box tied to an envelope. He smiled as he passed it to Nines, ignoring the look of confusion on his face. He had a feeling he knew what the letter was.

Nines pulled on the string, which came part quite easily, leaving the box to Gavin while he tore open the letter. Gavin, being the nosy little shit he was, opened the box and peered inside it. Inside was an intricate necklace with a design of some sort of flower — a lotus, the inside of the box helpfully said, representing strength and overcoming difficult times.

He smiled as he thought of just how true that was. Despite the fact that the doctors said that he most likely wouldn’t survive, most likely wouldn’t be able to talk, Nines fucking did it — with the same determination in his eyes as he had before the accident. When Gavin turned to Nines, he found tears streaking down his cheeks, a small smile plastered on his face as he read the letter some more. 

“Everything alright?” Gavin reached out a hand to wipe a couple tears off Nines’s face. Nines simply nodded and leaned into his touch.

“Yeah.” Nines sighed contentedly, gazing up at Gavin with a small smile on his lips. He pointed to Gavin, then to himself, his smile widening a fraction as Gavin smiled back at him. “Partners.”

* * *

Eventually, they split apart, because Nines wanted to watch some shitty Christmas and detective movies, to which Gavin suggested the entirety of the Die Hard franchise, even though technically only the first two movies took place on Christmas. After a few moments of amicable bickering over random shit about the movie _(and Gavin telling Nines about his huge hard-on for Bruce Willis in his teenage years),_ the two of them eventually settled on watching the movies in comfortable silence.

Gavin looked back at Nines, seeing him gaze at the screen wistfully as John McClane ran and ducked under a table, before shooting up at his assailant. He held Nines’s hand even tighter, smiling at him with all the hope he could give. 

“Hey. Once you get out of here, you’re gonna be just like him.” Gavin told him, pretending to think about it some more before he nodded and grinned at him. “Except way hotter and cooler, because we’re partners and we’re awesome. Okay?”

Nines stifled a laugh in the crook of Gavin’s neck, it’s breathy and kinda weak, and Gavin swore that he saw Nines wipe tears from his eyes. It was… nice to see him this vulnerable. Nice to see that Nines didn’t feel the need to be all strong and tough and lawful good paladin on him. 

“If.” Nines looked away from Gavin, back to the screen. His smile lowered a fraction, and his next words were shaky. “If. I… get out.”

“When.” Gavin insisted, holding his hand tighter, securing his arm around Nines and the dumb fucking cat toy. His voice held no room for doubt, reassuring himself as much as he was reassuring Nines. “When you get out of here, because it’s happening.”

“Just. Realistic. Not supposed. To be alive. To talk. To walk.” Nines let out a huff of air, his eyes seeming dimmer against the light from the TV and the battery powered Christmas tree. He gestured to his legs, trying hard to move them but not being able to, before giving Gavin a sad smile. “Sorry.”

Gavin just held Nines’s hand, as if he was the one who needed to be grounded to not spiral into a fucking panic attack. He took one deep breath. Then another. Then another. After he finally felt like he wouldn’t scream after he opened his mouth, he rubbed his thumb in circles on the back of Nines’s hand, the gesture probably more comforting for himself than Nines, but at the moment, he couldn’t really care.

“Everything’s gonna turn out fine.” Gavin said as he tilted his body to face Nines, the movie completely forgotten. Nines looked back at him with those blue eyes that showed that as much as he _really didn’t believe him,_ he wanted to. Wanted to believe that everything would be alright. “We’re gonna get you outta here. Do your fuckin’ exercises ‘til you can run and chase criminals and walk with me in parks, telling me about all those stupid fucking rain facts from off the top of your head.”

Nines sighed and pressed his body closer to Gavin’s, hiding his face in his jacket. Gavin let him as he continued talking. “We’re gonna sit down on the fucking beach, because it’s our vacation and we just spend more time with each other than we do with our families anyway, wearing these stupid fucking sunglasses, and- oh! Shit, yeah, I almost forgot.”

Gavin tried to untangle himself from Nines, and after a bit of coaxing him into letting go, he got down to his bag, reaching in for his other gift, two pairs of sunglasses with relatively dumb designs in his hand. He put one on himself and put the other on Nines, getting a laugh out of him. “Yeah, see? We’re gonna get you out of here. Just gotta… Just gotta believe.”

Nines stayed quiet, reaching his arm out for Gavin’s sunglasses. Gavin moved in closer and gave him a lopsided grin as he just touched his face in an attempt to take the glasses. Eventually, Nines got the glasses and put them on his head, right on top of the previous pair, giving him this dumb fucking grin that reminded Gavin of how Nines grinned before the accident. 

Gavin got in right next to Nines on the bed, the rest of the bag’s contents forgotten momentarily as Nines pulled his face to look directly in his eyes. Nines smiled at him, his eyes vibrant and filled with emotion. “Trust you.”

He hugged Gavin closer to his chest, and Gavin felt the warmth of Nines’s body envelop him, his heartbeat slowing down as the tiredness eventually caught up to him, and he smiled. Gavin slowly felt the call of sleep alluring too, and he closed his eyes. He pressed a kiss into Nines’s hair, running his fingers through it.

It probably wasn’t the best time to say this, but fuck it. He was tired, Nines was probably already asleep, and you only live once, right? Gavin sighed as he settled into the warmth, muttering two words as he gradually drifted off to sleep. “Love you.”

And if Nines held him tighter after that, neither of them remembered when they woke up the next morning.


	11. One Step Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the penultimate chapter for this fic, hell yeah!! also, if y'all haven't been [reading](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celexdraw/pseuds/celexdraw) and [looking](https://celexdraw.tumblr.com/) at my artist's work, what're y'all doing? go check 'em out!!

A few more weeks passed since Christmas at the hospital. Neither Nines nor Gavin spoke of it to anyone, much less each other, they just talked about more random shit that Gavin heard from either Chris or Tina. Gavin did find himself looking at Nines and just smiling for extended periods of time, however, and despite the fact that he should probably feel ashamed of that, he couldn’t really find it in himself to care that much.

New Years was spent in the hospital, just like Christmas. They just sat in bed and watched everything that went on on TV, before they eventually turned in for the night and fell asleep. None of the nurses commented on how Gavin slept right next to Nines in the cramped hospital bed, arm draped over his lithe frame protectively.

Gavin thought about how the rest of the days spent in the hospital passed. It was the same old routine, again and again. Wake up, eat something, do a bunch of exercises whenever Nines’s physical therapist came by, then fuck around until the day passed by. Gavin would occasionally check his phone for any updates on some of his old cases from Fowler, a bit of gossip from Tina, and a bit of advice on taking care of people from Chris.

It was always the same. Constant, which Gavin appreciated greatly while Nines was bored of it already and just wanted to get out of the hospital. While the days seemed to blur by for Nines  _ (he said so himself, actually),  _ Gavin knew how long Nines had actually been in here. He knew how many days he spent in the ICU, trying to hold himself together and just doing random shit, anything that could possibly evoke a response from Nines’s unconscious body.

After all the days of uncertainty, will he or won’t he survive, Gavin felt a sense of relief at finally coming to a point in which there wasn’t too much drama or anything. Nothing about how Nines’s vitals suddenly started dropping, nothing about how Gavin and Chris had to place wet towels on Nines to prevent his body heat’s continued rising. Just constant tasks. He actually liked having this one constant in his life.

Then, at some point in mid-January, the hospital finally allowed Nines to be brought back home, as long as he always had someone to be there with him. Nines seemed to be happy as long as he actually got out of the hospital, so Gavin took whatever stuff he brought Nines into the ambulance that led towards Nines’s place.

Soon enough, the hospital staff that brought them home let Nines out on his wheelchair, gave a few instructions to Gavin, who was apparently now designated as Nines’s primary caretaker  _ (not that he minded),  _ and left without any fanfare. Gavin dutifully took a hold of the handles on Nines’s wheelchair and led him through his front door.

“You excited, big guy?” Gavin asked as he parked Nines’s wheelchair in front of the TV.

“Yeah.” Nines lit up and grinned at him as he pointed towards his movie collection. “Alien. Watch.”

Gavin rolled his eyes and obliged, just to see Nines’s grin brighten up and hear his excited ‘thanks!’, grabbing the movie and popping it in. Nines was actually getting better at talking by this point. His voice got a little bit louder, and though he still couldn’t speak more than a few words at a time, it was an interesting development and Gavin couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride. Despite the doctors saying that he’d need speech therapy or whatever, Nines just talked and talked until he kinda could. In fact, some of them even said that if he kept it up, he might even fully recover.

With a sigh, Gavin sat down on the couch next to Nines and watched the movie.

* * *

Two more weeks had passed, and Nines was actually getting way better now. He was still getting the hang of talking. He spoke somewhat louder, and could actually say full sentences now. It was gradual, and slower than Nines would’ve liked  _ (impatient fucker, but Gavin couldn’t say that he wasn’t impatient either),  _ yet Gavin was still proud as hell for him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fu-” Nines hissed as his physical therapist, Jason, forced his leg up. To stretch his leg, as he was told, but Nines didn’t really seem to like it. In fact, Nines  _ really  _ didn’t seem to like any of his stretches, complaining that they stung like a motherfucker, yet insisted on doing them once in the morning and once at night, instead of his physical therapist’s advice of just once a day.

“I hate this.” Nines whined as Jason put his left leg down, waiting a few moments and for Nines’s sign of approval before lifting his right leg and pushing it upwards too. Nines cursed under his breath some more while Gavin just held his hand, letting him squeeze as hard as he could. Jason gave him a smile that looked like he wasn’t sorry but was trying to give him some form of comfort. 

After thirty seconds, Jason let his leg drop. Nines groaned as he placed his arm on his face, grumbling before he waved Gavin away to do business with his physical therapist. Gavin patted his shoulder, saying that he’ll be back in a few moments as he led Jason out towards the door and waited for his cab to arrive.

“His flexibility and his leg strength’s improving quickly.” Jason commented as he stuffed the $40 Gavin gave him into his bag. “At this rate, we might be able to get him walking in a few weeks from now.”

“Really now? Bet he’d love that.” Gavin chuckled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Anything new that we should be doin’ in terms of his physical therapy?”

Jason shook his head. “For now, we’ll just keep up with the strengthening. He’ll actually need to be able to use his legs to walk, y’know?”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Gavin replied after some time, and after Jason got in the cab, he went back inside. Nines was now idly tapping at his phone, playing some random phone game he downloaded a couple days ago and would probably delete in a few more days. Gavin laid beside Nines, who only gave off a small smile and tilted his head.

“What’s up? You’re smiling.” Nines put his phone down beside him and turned to face Gavin, sporting a teasing grin. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down like he was about to say something really fucking stupid. “Did you get Jason’s number? I always pegged him as your type.”

Gavin snorted and weakly tapped Nines’s leg. “I already have his number for when we’ve got questions about your routine and when he’s coming over, fuckwad. And he’s not my type, jesus.”

Nines let out a breathy laugh before going quiet for a few moments, rubbing his hand over the flesh of his arm. “What is your type then? We never got the chance to talk about it before the accident.”

_ You.  _ Gavin said mentally. Or at least he hoped so. He looked at Nines’s curious face, just for confirmation that he did not, in fact, say that out loud  _ (a leftover habit from when Nines was still somewhat unconscious, ever since he woke up the first time, Gavin had begun watching his words but sometimes things still slipped out).  _ “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy. Besides, thought you wanted to know why I was smiling?”

“It’s called multitasking, Gav. I believe you often did this back when we were working on cases.” Nines responded smugly, which got him a soft flick on the nose. He laughed quietly, shaking his head and rolling his eyes before he turned to face Gavin fully. “Prick. Alright, why were you smiling then?”

“Jason told me a little something about how if we kept up with your exercises, we could get you walking in a few weeks. No big deal.” Gavin said in the most nonchalant voice he could muster, just to see how Nines reacted. Boy, did he not disappoint. Nines’s smug face turned quickly into a look of surprise, staring at Gavin with furrowed brows as he took in the information.

“I’m gonna be able to walk again?” Nines asked carefully, and at Gavin’s affirmative nod, a large grin broke out on his face as he started laughing. “I’m gonna fucking walk again! Holy shit, Gav! This is amazing!”

Nines went in for a hug which Gavin happily accepted as he continued to express his disbelief, in between fits of laughter and curses. Then he insisted on doing his exercises  _ (“Right now!” “Hold up, hotshot. A while ago you were bitching about how your legs hurt.”).  _ Seeing Nines’s drive to get better warmed Gavin’s heart a bit. 

Eventually, the two of them settled on getting Nines’s motor skills back by writing each other shitty poems. Nines’s handwriting, although shaky and not up to Nines’s standards of perfection, was getting better and better the more he did it, managing to get straighter lines and writing without the letters dipping down or rising up. 

It was a tiny improvement, but Gavin couldn’t be any more proud of him.

* * *

A few more days passed after receiving the good news, and Gavin could tell that Nines was getting antsy. He kept pushing himself upward into a sitting position and dangling his legs over the side of his bed, trying to stand by holding himself up with the frame of the bed. Gavin walked in on so many of these that he actually lost count, but the fear of Nines losing his grip and falling over, cracking his head open was constant.

Today was not an exception.

Gavin was sitting in front of Nines’s computer, getting info on the case he filed about the driver that hit Nines. There weren’t too many witnesses on the scene, and most of them who were asked didn’t remember shit about anything, and the warrants for the security cameras on that road were taking way too fucking long to make progress on finding that guy, so Gavin was admittedly pissed about that.

“Stupid fuckin’ government.” Gavin muttered as he rubbed his eyes. “Can’t have shit in Detroit.”

“Gavin.”

_ Was that?  _ Gavin shook his head. There was no way that was Nines. Nines was in the other room, and he knew to ring the fucking bell thing that Tina insisted on so he could alert Gavin without having to yell  _ (which he couldn’t even do, so).  _ He shook his head as he read through a few more lines about cases that’ve been passed around because no one really wanted to do them. 

He’d been back in the field occasionally, when either Tina or Chris had their days off and could watch over Nines. Not gonna lie, he missed work, poking around in dead bodies and shit. Of course, Nines’s recovery came before everything, but he missed the sense of satisfaction that he got whenever he put someone behind bars for their crimes.

“Gavin.”

“Motherfucker.” Gavin shook his head and turned around, just for his peace of mind. Upon turning around, he spotted Nines standing in the middle of the room, leaning against a couch and- wait a fucking minute.

_“What the_ ** _fuck_** _?!_ Why the _fuck_ are you- holy shit-” Gavin spluttered as he haphazardly got out of his chair and marched towards a laughing Nines. “How did you even get here?!”

“I walked.” Nines replied with a shit-eating grin on his face, also looking extremely fucking proud of himself. Gavin was going to add a snappy comeback about how he still couldn’t fucking walk, but Nines cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I held onto the furniture for balance, don’t worry.”

Gavin sighed as he held Nines up with his own body and led him back to his room, sitting him down on his bed. He rubbed his eyes more vigorously, fixing Nines with a glare before he also settled down on the bed beside him. “What you did was stupid, irresponsible-”

“Technically, I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been aware of.”

“-you need to  _ tell me _ about shit like-” Gavin paused and glared at Nines again, who just shrugged lamely.

“Sometimes I like going to the bathroom by myself like a big boy, what’s wrong with that?” Nines just shrugged and tilted his head at Gavin, as if he didn’t know exactly what was wrong with what he did.

“What’s wrong with that, is that you could fall and break your fucking skull open.” Gavin muttered in the calmest voice he could muster. “What if you actually did? What if the button to call me was so far away? Better yet, what if no one was here?”

Nines frowned and sat up, that same stubborn determination in his eyes from before. “But I didn’t-”

“But you could’ve!” Gavin didn’t know if he said that or if he fucking screamed. He gripped the sheets tightly, trying to slow his breathing to a normal rate. A few tears leaked from his eyes, but he didn’t care. He focused on calming down and only spoke again once he was sure that he wouldn’t scream. “You could’ve. You could’ve died, and I wouldn’t’ve-”

Nines lifted an arm to put him in a side-hug and wiped some tears from his eyes with his arm. He didn’t mention the fact that he was crying. He never did. Instead, he leaned in closer to Gavin, his head resting in the crook of his neck. “Sorry.”

“Fuck your sorry.” Gavin muttered as he let Nines lean into him. “Just. We’ll practice walking, but we’ll do it together. Please, don’t just… for my peace of mind. Please.”

Gavin looked towards Nines, who was looking at the floor ahead of him with a somber smile. Nines squeezed his shoulder closer to himself, and responded in the sincerest voice he could. “Okay.”


	12. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the final chapter! *kazoo noises*

Nines had never been too hopeful about his recovery, but ever since getting out of the hospital, he actually felt that he could do it. 

He’d been doing his exercises daily, he kept his hopes up, and he really felt the difference now that he was looking for it. The way he used to be totally unable to stand without holding onto something turned into being able to stand for a few seconds before having to hold onto something, and it had only been… a week, maybe, from his first stunt with Gavin.

“What’d I tell ya? I knew you could do it!” Gavin grinned as he remained within arms reach of Nines, ready to catch him in case his legs gave out. “Look at you, walkin’ like you own the place.”

“It  _ is  _ my apartment, after all.” Nines shot back, trying to hide his growing smile while ignoring the temptation of falling directly into Gavin’s chest. His horny thoughts could wait a little while longer. Just until he regained his strength. 

Gavin snorted and shook his head, still grinning at him. “You know what I meant, you lil shit.”

He laughed a bit, just as he felt his legs give out and reached out towards Gavin, who caught him without a second thought. Gavin sat them down on the nearby couch, his arm wrapped almost instinctively around Nines’s waist. Nines hid his face in Gavin’s shoulder, aware of the blush that appeared on his face.

“You good?” Gavin asked, a little bit of that concern on his face before it turned into a teasing smirk. “Or do you want me to carry you to bed again?”

Nines had to stifle a laugh and tried to hit Gavin as hard as he could, which wasn’t that hard, but he appreciated Gavin’s fake flinch. “Yeah, yeah, let’s get this shit over with.”

Gavin stood up first, giving Nines a moment to rest his legs before reaching his arms out for Nines to grab and use to stand up. “Come on, we’ve got a few more things to do before we gotta settle down for the night.”

Nines flashed him a full grin this time, stood up to his full height, and just like that, they continued walking. One foot in front of the other, he and Gavin paced around the room before his legs decided to give out again, but to be honest, he didn’t really mind.

It was nice, knowing that for once in his life, there would be someone there to catch him when he fell.

* * *

A few more days passed. It’s still the same thing, again and again, but Nines found himself impatient. Why couldn’t his legs get used to walking faster? Why did his knees hurt so much despite their training? A lot of whys and why nots filled his thoughts these days.

He tried to walk to the bathroom again, this time not holding onto anything. He fell right in front of the door, the noise alerting Gavin to his position. Nines insisted that he was fine, he didn’t hit his head or anything, but Gavin still worried. He always was.

Gavin helped him up and led him to the toilet yet again, letting him know that he was just beyond the door if he needed him and left with a lingering touch on his face. At this point, Nines just stopped questioning his partner’s actions.

If it meant something, great! Nines would’ve loved it if he could kiss or even just hold Gavin tight. If it didn’t? Well, it’d hurt for a bit, but he’d move on.

Hopefully.

After he was done with his business, he stumbled towards the door, leaning against the wall just to the left of the door before opening it. Gavin stood right where he said he’d be and smiled at him, offering an arm in case he didn’t feel strong enough. Nines thought about whether he’d want to prove that he could walk fine, thank you very much, or if he wanted to be close to Gavin, eventually deciding that his touchstarvedness won out over pride.

Gavin smiled at him, holding him close. “Proud of you, bud. You’re gonna get back to walking in no time.”

The words warmed Nines’s heart, despite how mushy and gross feelings were as of now and the fact that he didn’t actually feel like he was making progress. Sure, Gavin always seemed to be proud of him, always praised him for his efforts, said that he was making progress, and that he could take breaks if he was feeling tired, or felt that it was too much, but Nines didn’t fully believe him. 

Because Nines didn’t feel like he was making progress. Not anymore.

He never saw his minor improvements anymore, despite Gavin’s insistence that he could stand longer, or that he could walk for a bit more before he had to cling onto something. He couldn’t see how his legs were getting stronger, despite Jason’s appraisal. All he saw was his mother, looking down at him, disappointed.

_ No son of mine would have gotten himself into a situation like this.  _ His mother would say, and his response was always the same.

_ I’m sorry I’m not good enough. _

* * *

Again and again, Nines tried. 

He could stand up for more than five seconds now, thank god, but his legs still hurt like a motherfucker. Gavin, ever present, remained by his side, reassuring him with words and actions, giving him that little bit of motivation that he needed to try again and again.

Yet again and again, he failed.

Nines really tried not to let his failures get to him. Tried to let both Jason and Gavin’s reassurances sink into him, tried to ignore the words of his mother  _ (who he hadn’t seen for years now, yet plagued his thoughts too often),  _ but apparently, his brain just hated him.

“Ready?” Gavin smiled at him, letting himself be Nines’s ‘tower of strength’ as he once called it. Nines snorted and shook his head, bowing his head so that Gavin wouldn’t see the fear and hesitance on his face. He wanted to tell him his worries. He wanted someone to help ease the burden on his shoulders.

“Sure.” He said instead, wanting to scream about how he didn’t feel enough, how he felt that despite their constant reassurance, he felt that he’d never get better. “Let’s do this.”

Gavin seemed to notice something in his eyes, but he didn’t comment. He slowly stepped backwards just as Nines walked forward, one foot in front of the other. Nines felt pain shoot up his legs, but he kept moving. He didn’t want to fall. He didn’t want to fail. He didn’t want to fail again.

One step forward, followed by another.

Nines felt his heart beat loudly against his ribcage, the pain in his legs teetering towards the edge of unbearable, but he kept walking, walking towards Gavin with his arms stretched out, waiting to catch him if he fell. Gavin praised him, continued with his reassuring words, but Nines didn’t hear them. All he heard in his mind was Connor’s distant voice, piercing through his loudest thoughts.

_ You’re a failure, Richard. You’re nothing but a burden, Richard.  _

He misstepped, his legs getting tangled together and causing him to crash to the ground. Gavin’s response was immediate, he took Nines in his arms and prevented him from hitting his head on the ground, yet Nines thought that maybe… maybe it’d be better if he hit the ground. Maybe it’d be better if he bled to death internally on the floor.

Then he wouldn’t be such a fucking burden anymore.

He curled up on himself, wanting everything to stop, but the voices in his head kept at it, never stopping to give him relief. He felt hands carding through his hair, a warmth his face was pressed against, and despite all the feelings of wrongness that warmth gave him, he reached towards it, embracing the warm figure as he sobbed violently. God, he was a fuckup. He wanted to leave,  _ needed  _ to leave, but he couldn’t because his legs were fucking atrophied from months in the hospital and he couldn’t fucking run away from his problems like last time and-

A voice broke through his frantic thoughts. “Breathe with me, Nines.”

Gavin?

The realization that he was hyperventilating hit Nines rather quickly and he slowly tried to get his breathing to a slower rate, following Gavin’s breathing patterns. His heart still raced in his chest and he slowly calmed down, despite his rampant thoughts bringing him down. Jesus christ, he just had a breakdown in front of his partner because he  _ fell _ . Something that had happened plenty of times, yet he couldn’t-

“Breathe.” Gavin’s voice broke through again, this time with a bit more concern in his voice as he continued to rake his hands through Nines’s hair. Nines eventually figured that if Gavin hadn’t left yet, then he might actually stick with him through this. The thought was strange, foreign, yet… “That’s it. You’re fine. You’re okay.”

Nines’s breathing steadied, and Gavin remained present, through his touch, through his words, through his concerned looks. He blinked blearily at Gavin, trying to find the words to thank him for sticking through this entire shit-show.

“...Thanks.” He settled on instead, hating how his voice sounded so quiet and broken. Gavin didn’t comment on it, simply smiling and holding him. The silence that remained between them wasn’t exactly tense, not comfortable either, but it was bearable. Nines took a deep breath, taking in the feeling of Gavin’s hands on his body, leaning into his touch without saying a word.

“You alright?” Gavin asked after a few moments. Nines nodded once, before laughing and shaking his head vigorously.

“I’m so fucking tired of this.” Nines muttered under his breath, a small, forced smile on his lips. “I can’t do it Gav. No matter how hard I try, I keep falling. Keep failing.”

A bitter laugh escaped Nines’s throat, he felt tears start to form but at that moment, he didn’t care. He couldn’t care about how weak he was, knowing full well that Gavin’s already seen him at his weakest point and yet still remained. Whether it was out of pity or something else… “You know, I never talked about my other brother. Conrad. He was younger than Connor by eight minutes. We used to do everything together, since Connor was such a stickler for our mother’s rules.”

Memories started resurfacing in Nines’s mind, of sneaking out of boring lectures that their mother forced them to attend, of playing video games together, of their last conversation before… Nines shook his head. “Conrad just went out on a walk. Told me that he was gonna try to get a copy of that one book that I liked. We were alerted to his body the next morning, doctors told us that he had been injected with a lethal dose of Red Ice.”

If Gavin reacted, he kept quiet, instead choosing to rub calming circles into the back of Nines’s hand. Nines smiled fractionally at the gesture, sighing as he rubbed at his eyes. “The police never did find out who killed him. And I figured, if they couldn’t find out, guess I’d have to do it myself. So I learned. I did my absolute best in the academy, not caring if I stepped on anyone else’s toes to get ahead, because I  _ needed  _ to be the best. I needed to be the best to be able to get partnered with Lieutenant Anderson, the guy who got that massive bust on that Red Ice deal, because if anyone could help me avenge Conrad, it’d be him, right?”

Nines took another deep breath, huffing out a tired laugh as he ran his hand through his hair. “I tried, y’know? I tried so hard to do things right, just so I could avenge him, but then this whole thing happened and… and now we’re here.”

“You’ve gotta let him go, Nines.” Gavin murmured silently, looking at Nines directly in the eyes. “You’ve gotta do things for yourself. Not for your mother, not for your brothers, not even for me.” 

“But what’s the point in doing things if I don’t even have anything to work towards? I used to have that drive to be a police officer because of Conrad, but now I can’t even do that anymore. I’m giving up on the one thing I had to do to avenge him, and I’m failing him, yet again.” Nines looked at Gavin with teary eyes as he tried to repress a choked out sob. Gavin remained silent, but Nines didn’t expect a response anyway. “I’m tired, Gavin. I’m tired of failing, again and again. Of never being enough. I just wanted to give my brother justice, but now I can’t even fucking walk, and I probably won’t be able to. I just… I can’t  _ do _ this anymore, Gav. I can’t.”

Gavin’s brows furrowed as he held Nines’s hand, lips pursed in thought. Nines was just waiting for him to say that he was right, he wasn’t going to get better. He was going to remain a burden, to his family, to the DPD, to Gavin.

“Yes, you can.” Gavin said instead, a fire in his eyes that Nines only saw when he was  _ this  _ close to solving a particularly tough case. “You can. You’ve overcome so much, it’s just… you’re so fuckin’ amazing, okay?”

Nines looked away in dismissal, but Gavin brought his hand up to cup his cheek, directing his face to look back at him, to see the determination and truthfulness in his eyes. Gavin struggled with getting his words out, tears threatening to burst through, but he kept at it. 

“The doctors… you heard ‘em, right? Said you weren’t even supposed to be alive, not without bein’ a vegetable or comatose, but look at you! You’re neither of those things, you’re  _ alive,  _ and healthy, and strong, and…” Gavin laughed for a moment, wiping away the tears that fell from his eyes before he looked at Nines with a distinct mix of trust, awe, and  _ affection _ . “They said that you wouldn’t even be able to talk without speech therapy, but here you are, talking like nothing fuckin’ happened! You did this because you wanted to talk shit about me, you wanted to talk about whatever fuckin’ movie you saw play on TV, because you wanted things to go back to the way it was before…”

Gavin paused for a moment and shook his head, repositioning himself so that he was sitting down facing Nines head on. He still held onto his hands, taking them close to his chest as he poured his heart out. “You’ve done so much for us. You took more work from Chris so he could spend time with his family. You helped Tina get the balls to ask out her girlfriend. You… You helped me find love in more than just work. You’ve shown me that there’s more in the world, that despite everything that’s goin’ on right now, there’s always something amazing happening somewhere. You made me realize that… that I can actually learn to love someone. You made me realize that I fucking love you. So don’t give up, okay?”

At first, Nines wanted to deny what Gavin said. He wasn’t special, he hadn’t helped anyone, he was just a burden. But the sincerity in Gavin’s voice as he said that… and the fact that Gavin loved him? He looked deep into Gavin’s eyes, noticing the warmth and raw emotion swirling inside of them as he wiped a stray tear from Gavin’s cheek.

Nines wasn’t sure who leaned in first, but he found himself kissing Gavin Reed.

It wasn’t all sparks and fireworks like in the movies, it wasn’t as aggressive as he’d expected of Gavin, no. It was soft and tender, Gavin cradling his face as if he was something to be treasured. He leaned more into the kiss, pouring every ounce of passion into it as he slowly lifted his shaky arms and placed his hands on Gavin’s shoulders.

They broke apart after a few more seconds, just staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, before Gavin smiled at him softly and buried his face in the crook of his neck, muttering a few words that Nines only managed to take in the tail end of.

“We’ll get through this. Together.”

And for once, Nines didn’t listen to the thoughts plaguing his mind, insisting that this was too good to be true, that he was just pulling Gavin down with him. He just listened to Gavin’s breathing, and thought that hey. Things might not be okay right now, but they’d get better eventually, and he wasn’t going to face life alone. Not anymore.

* * *

A few more months have passed since the first of many kisses between Richard “Nines” Stern and Gavin Reed, and to be honest, the days passed by like a blur for Nines, and he couldn’t tell whether it was because of his memory getting shittier due to the accident or because he was just so damn busy. He’d finally managed to get used to walking and even running, but between the physical therapy he took, the cases that he became a consultant on, and just readjusting to the precinct life in general, it wasn’t quite a stretch to say that the past days have gone by fast. For starters, he was just about to take his detective exam and he was scared as shit.

“Someone’s stressed.” Chris remarked from beside him. Nines simply glared at him, no real heat behind it as he buried his head in his hands.

“I’m just worried about the results.” Nines muttered, noting how Chris patted his back like he did whenever Gavin was incredibly stressed about something. “What if they decide to fail me because I’m still recovering from being hit by a fucking car? What if they think my mental strengths are-”

Chris shushed him and put a finger to his face, putting on his ‘I am talking to a child’ face. Nines frowned at him, though Chris either didn’t care or didn’t notice. “You’ll do fine. You’re going to be a great detective, and then you’ll have a hot and steamy make-out session with Gavi-”

“Shut up!” Nines laughed and nearly pushed Chris off his chair with one hand, hiding his face with the other. “You’re the worst.”

Chris shrugged and grinned as he sat upright again, before he ruffled Nines’s hair. “But it worked, didn’t it? You’ll do fine. Besides, I’m pretty sure Gav would riot if you didn’t make it.”

“As much as we all love to see a standard Gavin Reed riot, I don’t think that would improve my chances at actually becoming a detective.” Nines chuckled as Tina joined them in their seats.

Tina smiled and hugged him and looked forward to the makeshift stage, a large screen with the DPD’s logo emblazoned on the middle. It was… the most formal Nines had actually seen the precinct be, despite the incessant chatter going on around him. Tina looked back at him and nudged his shoulder. “How’s it feel to be dating Detroit’s newest police sergeant, huh?”

Nines rolled his eyes before looking at Tina with a sarcastic grin. “Real great. He now gets to order me around both at work and in bed.”

“Gross.” Tina laughed loudly while Chris shook his head and didn’t bother to hide his smile. Tina punched his shoulder and grinned at him. “Have you heard? Gavin told Fowler that if you guys don’t get partnered he’d take all his vacation days and use them to bum around the precinct and spend time with you as Gavin Reed instead of Sergeant Reed.”

Nines simply raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. Apparently, this was the perfect time for Gavin to come right in front of him, his police uniform tight around his bulky frame branding him as ‘SERGEANT’. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Nines responded with a smile, standing up to help fix Gavin’s collar. Gavin didn’t seem to really mind their closeness, placing his hands on Nines’s waist. If Nines didn’t know any better, he’d say that Gavin deliberately messed up his collar just so that Nines could do this right in front of everyone. Once he was done with Gavin’s collar, he pressed a quick kiss into Gavin’s nose. “How’s it feel to be Sergeant of Homicide?”

“I’m hella nervous.” Gavin admitted with a laugh, shaking his head. “Like  _ fuck,  _ what am I even supposed to do? I’m not used to working with a partner, much less with a whole team.”

“You’ll do great, babe.” Nines smiled at him, hoping to give all the reassurance he could. Tina fake-gagged and Chris slapped her back, giggling to each other, while Gavin rolled his eyes. Despite his outward dismissal, Gavin shot him a soft and sweet smile to let him know that his assurance was welcomed.

With that done with, Nines shamelessly let his hands roam across Gavin’s upper body, his hands already familiar with each curve of his partner’s body yet still wandering as if it was the first time. “You sure this is the only time I’ll see you in uniform, Sarge?”

Gavin’s face went delightfully red before he pushed it forward to hide in Nines’s chest. “We’ll see.”

Unfortunately, their flirting was halted by Captain Fowler’s introductory speech, and with a quick kiss, Gavin left for the line behind them. Nines watched him go, eyes respectfully landing on Gavin’s ass, because hell yeah, that’s his boyfriend. Tina and Chris both gave him smug looks, which probably made him blush harder than Gavin did, but oh well. He flipped them both off as discreetly as he could before returning his attention to Captain Fowler.

A bunch of words were said, and a bunch of people were promoted to chief, lieutenant, and sergeant, but Nines only had eyes for one person.

“...this next sergeant, ranked number one, overall. Sergeant Gavin Reed.”

Gavin strutted up to the front, saluted the Captain, and walked back, with a serious look on his face before breaking out into the dopiest grin ever upon seeing Nines. It was actually quite stupid-looking when placed on Gavin, like it didn’t belong, but for Nines it was actually quite endearing. Cute, even. Nines smiled back at Gavin, who walked back to his side, grinning as if he hung the sun, the moon and the stars with a single hand, and for a brief moment, Nines figured that he might as well have.

He really liked this. Hanging out with Chris and Tina, Gavin smiling at him, holding hands just like boyfriends did. It was great. He thought about how soon enough, it might be him on that stage, if the DPD decided he was good enough to be a detective. Thought about what drove him to be an officer in the first place. A bittersweet smile appeared on his face as he remembered the discussion he had with Gavin before their first kiss.

Conrad was the driving force to his enlistment in the police academy, he was the one thing that kept him going through all the tedious workouts and the studying for tests. He thought that making sure that those who killed his brother was the only way to avenge him, the only way to prove to his mother, to Connor, and most importantly, to  _ himself,  _ that he was good, that he was worth something but…

But now he wasn’t even sure if Conrad’s killers were even still out there. They could’ve moved out to Florida for all he knew, and sure, he could’ve caught some more people trying out how potent their Ice was, to save more people from the anguish that he experienced. Was going to homicide really the right choice? There were so many things going on in his mind, so many what ifs.

A weight on his hand snapped him out of his thoughts. He turned to look at his hand, finding it engulfed by Gavin’s hand. Looking up at Gavin’s face, he saw that Gavin wasn’t even looking at him, still facing forward, paying attention to whatever Fowler was saying.

As if it was just in Gavin’s instincts to hold his boyfriend’s hand.

Nines let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. Yeah. Homicide was a good choice. There wasn’t a right choice in choosing his profession. He smiled at his and Gavin’s intertwined hands, giving them a gentle squeeze and receiving one back.

Perhaps he’d never truly get over Conrad’s death. Perhaps he wouldn’t ever forget how much it hurt when Connor didn’t visit him in the hospital when he was awake. But perhaps it was time that he stopped letting his brothers be the focus of his own life.

Maybe he just had to live life for himself.

Nines looked towards Gavin, a small smile on his face, and decided for himself. He was going to keep doing police work because  _ he  _ liked it. He was going to climb the ranks because of his  _ own  _ ambition to be better. He was going to keep being Gavin’s boyfriend because  _ he  _ loved him.

“Hey.” Nines said, pulling on Gavin’s hand. Gavin turned to him with that same lovestruck look that he wore whenever he thought Nines wasn’t looking.

“Hm?” 

“I love you.”

“Love you too, babe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end of it!! thank you all so much for reading, and once again, i just wanna thank my artist and beta, [celexdraw](https://celexdraw.tumblr.com/) for doing so much for this fic, i literally could not have given you this experience without them!!
> 
> also, check out the rest of the entries for the [ reed900 reverse big bang](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reed900ReverseBigBang), there's a whole lot more of awesome works in there written by the community, there's bound to be something that you like!
> 
> that said, be safe everyone, and see ya on the flipside <3


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